It’s Not My Fault!

Gr 1-3–A young boy is so incapable of accepting responsibility for his own mistakes that he blames everyone—and everything—around him. When the inanimate objects in his life get fed up with being scapegoats, they stage a revolt, rising up in the middle of the night to tell the boy why his blame-shifting actions are wrong. Human characters have a comics aesthetic to them, while the inanimate objects all have expressive faces. An angry pair of shoes, a furious backpack, and an irate bar of soap show their fury by grimacing and baring teeth at the irresponsible main character. The book employs what is now a John trademark: a character delivers a page-long monologue in which the moral of the story is delivered. While the narrative delivery lacks cleverness, the book’s presentation and metatext is dripping with it. The jacket flap is narrated by the buck-passing main character. The dedication features the illustrator blaming the author and the author claiming, naturally, that it’s not his fault.