Spud

My book, Spud, is most likely slapstick with elements of farce in it. The book is about a boy in South Africa right before the release of Nelson Mandela. Spud, the boy’s name, is getting ready for his first day at a boarding school. This book is slapstick because there are many incidents of angry older students giving undeserved revenge to the youngest grades. There are many awkward incidents that the members of the youngest grade manage to wriggle out of in a hilarious fashion. For example there is a boy whose nick name is Fatty that supposedly ways more than 300 pounds. Fatty manages to get stuck in a window while trying to attempt a highly illegal night swim with his fellow dorm mates. In the morning when the headmaster is raging and is starting to look for his cane the students come up with an excuse: Fatty was stuck in the chapel window because he had a sudden revelation in the middle of the night. Even though the headmaster knew they were lying he didn’t want to wreck Bishops moment of happiness so they didn’t get in trouble. Spud is mostly slapstick, but the way it is presented makes it much funnier then slapstick. I find Spud to be a funny book because it is written in the style of a diary and from the perspective of a boy my age. A lot of the problems that Spud goes through during the course of the book are the same problems that I have gone through during my life, but over exaggerated. The way that John Van de Ruit, the author, describes Spuds problems makes it very amusing. All the characters in the book are over exaggerated in the book, for example Spuds grandma keeps saying that a robber stole her yogurt and left 5 dollars on her table. Spuds dad is a crazy lunatic who is constantly scared that there are black people hiding in bushes and after the release of Nelson Mandela he transforms his house into a military bunker with curfews. Spud is funny because it made me realize how stupid and funny my problems are.