{"id":22372,"date":"2020-06-29T15:46:12","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T15:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=22372"},"modified":"2020-06-29T15:46:12","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T15:46:12","slug":"little-david","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2020\/06\/29\/little-david\/","title":{"rendered":"Little David"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy David Cantero<\/strong> (Northwest Press)
\neISBN: 978-1-9438900-0-2 (digital only)<\/p>\n

Families are important: by all metrics the foundation of human society. If we swallow our arrogant exceptionalism for a moment, it’s also the binding concept of all mammalian life and a fair bit of the rest of Earth’s breathing occupants. You just need to be flexible, amenable to change and willing to re-examine and where necessary loosen any old hidebound definitions you might have acquired while growing up\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The concept is one we’re finally shedding: escaping centuries of oppressive preconditioning and the diktat of whatever autocratic – or, more usually, theocratic – hegemony presumes to run your life.<\/p>\n

I’ll restate that just in case I wasn’t clear: human beings are all about families and what constitutes a family is open to interpretation\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

David Cantero Berenguer (The Little Swallow Light<\/strong>, Cunitoons<\/strong>, People<\/strong>) was born in Cartagena, Spain and – after graduating in 1996 from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Li\u00c3\u00a8ge – embarked on a stellar career as an author, cartoonist, illustrator, concept artist, designer and games maker. He is a prolific creator of books and graphic novels for kids and adults. Many of his works involve gay themes, ranging from inclusive all-ages chronicles (like the one under review here) to beguiling adult erotica.<\/p>\n

First released in 2015 and deftly referencing Winsor McCay’s classic fantasy Little Nemo in Slumberland<\/strong>, Little David<\/strong> is a delicious selection of short gags wherein the ever-inquisitive titular star cavorts, chats and interacts with nine other kids, all cumulatively representing the wealth of options qualifying as family units today.<\/p>\n

David himself has two dads, and pal Ulysses<\/em> has a widowed mother, a stepdad and two half-brothers, whilst forthright Marie<\/em> just has her mum. Abrasive Big Harry<\/em> is full-nuclear in a biological clan of mum, dad and one sister, whereas Lena<\/em>is a result of artificial insemination undertaken by her already-divorced mother. Anastasia<\/em> has a mum and dad who conceived her in vitro, and PJ<\/em> was adopted. Completing the menu, Ian<\/em> has a trans dad and a mum whilst twins Yoko<\/em> and Keiko<\/em> have two mums and are the result of natural insemination\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

That’s a heady mix and the subject of exactly the kind of innocently incisive, hilarious conversations you’d imagine a bunch of smart, curious kids to indulge in when the adults are absent and they’re trying to get to know each other.<\/p>\n

The result is a charming and wittily compelling string of spit-take moments, especially as David (and his beloved stuffed unicorn Little Poo Poo<\/em>) not only learn about many other ways of living but also explore various ways of dressing and expressing his own developing personality, interests and choices\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

As innocently enchanting as Peanuts<\/strong>, as astute as Bloom County<\/strong> and as revelatory as Calvin and Hobbes<\/strong>, this peewee playground of family fun offers as sincerely inclusive and heartwarming kindergarten of comics messaging as you’d ever want your kids to see and is also a superb example of top rate cartooning to gladden the eyes.<\/p>\n

Little David <\/strong>is a book every home and elementary school should have and use.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2015 David Cantero. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By David Cantero (Northwest Press) eISBN: 978-1-9438900-0-2 (digital only) Families are important: by all metrics the foundation of human society. If we swallow our arrogant exceptionalism for a moment, it’s also the binding concept of all mammalian life and a fair bit of the rest of Earth’s breathing occupants. You just need to be flexible, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Little David”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[125,97,215],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-kids-all-ages","category-lgbtqia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-5OQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}