Title: The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Co. | Series: The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Co Pt 1 | Author: John Serbin | Pub. Date: 2017-4-27 | Pages: 191 | ISBN13: 978-1940465005 | Genre: Humor & Satire | Language: English | Triggers: None
The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Co Pt 1
A self-centered teddy bear becomes real and has to learn how to live in this new reality. He is soon joined by other teddy bears with differing personalities. Together, they embark on a series of comical adventures as only fun loving teddy bears can. If you enjoy the characters and humor of Calvin and Hobbs, The Far Side, and Peanuts, you will definitely fall in love with this comical company of teddy bears as they experience the world from their unique perspective. – Goodreads
The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Company Review
I… should not have accepted this book for review. I waffled on whether to do so, but ultimately pulled in by the Calvin and Hobbes nod. That series is one our whole family loves, so I said I’d give The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Company a shot.
The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Company is the whimsical adventures of a stuffed teddy bear named Scruffer and his family. Scruffer gets into a large amount of mischief with or without his companions. He’s a friendly fellow overall, and is indeed very Calvin like in a lot of ways. I liked Paula, who was able to smoothly manipulate Scruffer to keep him on the best possible behavior. Some of the tricks she pulled with him were admiringly sneaky! She and John both made good parents to their brood o’ stuffies.
My favorite adventures of Scruffer & Company were the vacation (specifically the rolypoly ball) and the growing of the cookie bush. Considering the fact that I’ve had my kid bury plastic eggs and then snuck out and replaced them with the ‘grown’ candy, I totally got the cookie bush.
Part of my problem with The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Company is that things tended to move very slow. I felt sometimes like it couldn’t figure out if it was aiming for kids or adults. My child’s attention wandered frequently until I gave up trying to read it to her. My attention did the same. I think some illustrations in the book would have been helpful in maintaining interest. I feel pretty secure in saying that, considering the sheer amount of kid and adult books that I read. Also, the dialogue can be amusing, but reading Scruffer’s accent can get old at times.
Unfortunately, this book just didn’t work for me. The humor in The Incredible Adventures of Scruffer & Company failed to amuse me. I couldn’t really form a connection with any of the characters. I never really went beyond mildly amused at some points. While the writing in the book isn’t perfect (see comments on pacing above), I think it was simply a case of this book wasn’t for me more than anything else.
Overall, I can’t recommend it personally but I won’t try to dissuade others from picking it up, either.