Mauri Kunnas

Although the eponymous Mr. Clutterbuck believes that he leads a quiet life, in reality his persistent sleepwalking involves him in every exciting public event in his city. Refusing all kinds of invitations for after-work activities, our horned hero inevitably heads home, feeds his pet guinea pig Gus, and goes to sleep. No sooner is he slumbering, however, than he is up again, wandering around town while the vigilant Gus follows along, attempting to steer him away from trouble. In the course of his somnolescent saunterings, Mr. Clutterbuck manages to make peace between warring motorcycle gangs, save a sausage factory in danger of going out of business, help a famous rock band create their latest hit song, redirect the energy of the town's busiest mess maker toward cleanup, and catches the thief who has been stealing everyone's spoons.

Sleeping has never been as actively (and inadvertently) heroic as it is in Goodnight Mr. Clutterbuck, the fourth picture-book I have read from the Brooklyn-based Elsewhere Editions, a new publishing imprint dedicated to translating children's books from languages other than English, and presenting them to the American market. Mr. Clutterbuck is known as Herra Hakkarainen in his native Finnish, where he is the hero of a number of idiosyncratically humorous picture-books by author/illustrator Mauri Kunnas. I'm so glad that he has finally made it into English, and that I had the chance to read this story, which will be coming out in November, 2017 (I had access to an ARC, or Advance Readers Copy)! I found the story here humorous and involving, and the artwork intensely detailed and full of charm. Children will enjoy poring over these illustrations. I do think this one is a little text-heavy for younger children, so I would recommend it to more mature picture-book readers, perhaps five to eight years old. Let's hope more of Herra Hakkarainen's adventures find their way into English...… (meer)