Mr. Sneeze: 02/05/07

Blame global warming on Mr. Sneeze. In his search for a sneeze free life, Mr. Sneeze heads south for warmer climes and ends up brining the warm weather back north with him to Coldland.

Mr. Sneeze is the first of the Mr. Men books I've read that is in a specific country other than being presumably in miniature villages somewhere in Britain. In this case, the country is named and the way it is described it must be up in the arctic circle like Greenland. With the literal approach to story telling in the Mr. Men books, it would be out of place to set Mr. Sneeze in an icy country ironically named Greenland. Therefore he lives in Coldland.

The artwork for the snowbound sunless city of Shivertown and the snowy hills on the outskirts are a nice change from the usual Hargreaves's garish colors. Unfortunately the story doesn't end with Mr. Sneeze either finding a comfortable place to live south of his home or learning to live with the cold (like putting on warmer clothing). Instead it goes for the "just change the environment" solution without any thought of the consequences. The story ends before there's time for any negative repercussions (flooding in Wobbletown perhaps?) and thus falls flat.

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