The 13-Story Treehouse

This series opener offers readers a hilarious, metafictional peek into the writing and illustrating process of the very story they are reading. Where do Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton get their ideas? Well, from “stuff that actually happened,” such as a close call with a sneaky sea monster and a gang of monkeys lured away by a giant banana. Plot developments offer ample humor. Andy and Terry’s book was due to the publisher last Friday, and the continuing procrastination (“I promise I’ll get to work right after I’ve hatched the sea-monkeys.”) and wild antics in the treehouse are laugh-out-loud funny. The treehouse in which Andy and Terry live is a kid-friendly place with tremendously appealing details. For instance, a marshmallow machine shoots marshmallows into their mouths whenever they’re hungry. And when a growling brussels sprout appears, the “vegetable vaporizer” eliminates it with a deadly ray. Terry Denton’s amusing drawings feature copious witty labels and dialogue bubbles. In one cartoon, for example, a crowd has gathered on a roof, looking up at the flying “catnary.” One person asks, “Is it a cat?” while another wonders, “Is it a canary?” A third says, “I don’t know what it is. I can’t see for all the speech balloons.”