Goliath

Starred review from March 15, 2012
Sure, everyone loves the biblical underdog, David, but isn't it time someone had a little sympathy for the big guy? In this hilariously understated revisioning, Gauld turns the brute into a hapless lug doomed by his own meekness and a single, stupid, well-placed rock. With the armies of the the Philistines and the Israelites at an impasse, a Philistine captain concocts a crazy scheme to flaunt Goliath's intimidating size and wage psychological warfare on the enemy. He ignores Goliath's objections (I'm the fifth-worst swordsman in my platoon . . . I do paperwork! I'm a very good administrator!) and has him repeat, day after day, a challenge to single combat, reasoning that no one would be nutty enough to take on such a mountain of a man. Gauld's stylistic toolkitclean lines, simple shapes, and crosshatching so thick it's nearly fabricmakes it all a pleasure to behold. He mines comedic gold from deadpan reaction shots so well timed you could set a watch by them and, weirder still, some tragic oomph for the lumbering sucker. After a few clever, heartbreaking scenes foreshadowing the inevitable showdown, you really start to pull for Goliath. Yet here comes some smartass kid with a slingshot to plunk him right between the eyes and cut his head off. What a jerk.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)