Big Nate, What’s A Little Noogie Between Friends review

I’m laughing to myself in a coffee house. There are men and women in suits talking about insurance, retirement homes, closing loans and talking technology. And I’m reading a comic strip that makes our 7 year old laugh-and laughing as much as he does. Big Nate, What’s a Little Noogie Between Friends collects previously released comic strips from this seminal series and it’s hilarious.

The situations that Nate, a typical sixth-grader encounters are the same as when I was a kid. There are a series of comic strips in What’s A Little Noogie Between Friends about his soccer team. They’re about to play a team that hasn’t won in five years. All of sudden one of the kids on Nate’s team says “Wouldn’t it be funny if….” and he jinxes the team. I remember things in the same line happening to me.

For example, our 7 year old is really into Monopoly now. There are a series of panels in What’s A Little Noogie Between Friends where Nate and his friends are playing the game. Nate is the banker in the game and he’s not doing too well. He’s losing money in one comic and in the next one he’s flush with cash, buying properties and his friends are trying to figure out what’s happing. Nate credits savvy investing.

That is way that I was the banker and it’s the same way that our son is the banker. For a period of time that’s how kids are the banker. Big Nate is like that in the fact that seemingly every comic strip has elements that will resonate with adults and children.

Kids scoring goals on their own team or passing balls to the soccer wunderkind-who is playing for the other team, happen to kids when they’re playing. In the short and long term it’s a small deal, but it’s a funny situation that sears a memory in you that lasts a lifetime.

Nate is starting to like girls now and there is a story that consists of a couple comic strips where Jenny, a girl that he likes is moving. He’s in the friend/girlfriend zone and too scared to cross the barrier. The scene where she says her final goodbye to Nate before walking away with another boy is really touching. It’s in the same vein as the little redheaded girl and Charlie Brown’s frustrations.

Big Nate, What’s A Little Noogie Between Friends is all color, very funny and is the kind of book that you will keep for generations. I catch the strip online from time to time and these books are really a treat for ages 7 and up.