The Last Basselope
- author & illustrator: Berkeley Breathed http://www.berkeleybreathed.com/pages/About.asp
- year of publication: 1992
- publisher city: Boston
- publisher: Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 0-316-10761-1
Annotation: Follow not so famous adventurers Opus the penguin, Bill the Cat, Milquetoast and Ronald Anne on their expedition to find the mythical ferocious last Basselope. Will their trek to find the creature be their last? Marshmallow gummi bear milkshakes, anyone?
Personal Thoughts: I’m feeling terribly old, considering that I grew up on Berkeley Breathed’s comic strip “Bloom County”. I loved it. I bet most picturebook readers nowadays wouldn’t know it from Frankie Avalon. But alas, this picturebook is a spinoff of “Bloom County” and carries on a tradition of irreverent humor that is a trademark of Breathed. The hunt is on for the last basselope, a creature so vicious it struck fear into the dinosaurs and lurks untraceable in our deepest forests. It looks like a basset hound with moose antlers. It eats lots of dandelions. To thwart its attack, make sure to bring lots of nasal spray. Opus finds this out after he pulls his reluctant expedition team away from the tv. The entire tale is crazy. It’s one big exercise in the author’s unrestricted attempt at silliness and it mostly works. The art is both black and white pencils sketches and full page color illustrations that look as though rendered through computer illustrating software. I don’t think the book deserves a Caldecott award, but it offers a few chuckles and that’s good enough.
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