Book Review: "Billy's Book" by Terry Bisson

Jennifer Marshall

29 June 2009, 18:01

Sometimes I wish I could read my sons’ minds but if Terry Bisson’s novella, Billy’s Book, is anything to go by, I should probably be thankful that I can’t always tell what they’re thinking. Terry Bisson brings me about as close as I would hope to get to the fantastical world of war, revenge and world domination inhabited by the minds of little boys.

The story tells of the escapades of a young boy, Billy. Billy’s ordinarily routine days are punctuated by extraordinary adventures and lessons learned from some colourful characters. Billy exists in a world in which the confines of reality are stretched and blurred with make-believe, a world of which even his parents sometimes seem begrudgingly convinced. Often the reluctant hero, Billy faces monumental challenges – wars, alien invasions, wizards of questionable authority and accusations by the FBI – and he tackles each predicament with gusto and grit.

The book is written largely in entertaining dialogue between Billy and his parents who often bring him back to reality with a disheartening thud as inevitable battles over chores and brussel sprouts ensue. Billy’s escapades are often discovered once the action is largely over, his father discovering Billy’s latest caper in the front page headlines as he reads over breakfast. The turkey dinners his mother serves up every night, his father’s frequent returns home from jail and the lingering threat of FBI interrogations often hamper his larger than life imaginery world.

Billy’s retreat into his make-believe world provides an escape from larger issues involving his family life and faced by young children the world over as they push boundaries and explore the limits of the larger, scarier and more dull world of grown-ups; testing the waters with one toe before ultimately taking the plunge. Billy’s make-believe friends help him navigate these stumbling blocks encountered in his journey through childhood.

Wars and revenge play a large part in this school of hard knocks although Billy learns many lessons of honesty and responsibility the hard way – often involving substantial personal sacrifice. He even turns down the chance to be king of a new world and instead, recognizes his responsibility to save his own world from space invaders. Stating proudly that he is “just a little boy” he turns down the prospect of world domination and chooses to rescue his own imperfect world fraught with confusion and false friends.

Chapters within each story are short and coincide with the attention span of a young boy playing throughout the course of an ordinarily routine day – morning, lunch and naptime. These often fierce and frightening stories are perfect for reading aloud to children and capturing their imaginations.

Billy’s dream world borders on madness in parts, but then, don’t all dreams? This is what makes this book so entertaining and appealing to adults and children alike. As a parent, I found Billy’s plans to kill his next door arch-enemy Vernon a little disturbing, but to a child, the natural progression from anger to murder is less of a leap and rather a step; in some circumstances, a seemingly logical solution to a niggling annoyance, the child having little or no perception of the permanence of the solution. In “Billy and the Fairy”, the fairy announces she has killed his parents. Billy seems mildly perturbed when his replacement insists upon being addressed as “Sir” and instructs him to finish his chores.

This book very cleverly and convincingly explores a young, imaginative mind in all its savage innocence and glory. Billy’s relentless determination and undying spirit are admirable qualities to which young readers might aspire and Billy’s pragmatic approach to surreal mishaps encountered with all manner of fantastical creatures re-awakened my own sense of infinite possibility in a grown-up world.

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