Book Review: Mr. Men #5 - Mr. Sneeze

5:19p.m., Mon 31 Jan 2011

How times have changed. In the current climate, where fear of diseases such as S.A.R.S and Bird Flu is at an all time high, Mr. Sneeze would be shunned by society. People would change rail carriages when Mr. Sneeze sat down, mothers would cover their babies faces, turn and run. Disturbingly, Mr Sneeze doesn’t seem to have any hands so it’s not like he can cover his mouth when he sneezes and none of the illustrations feature even the suggestion of a hankerchief. Nevertheless, in the carefree 70s, this walking virus factory was embraced as a beloved character in children's literature.

Mr. Sneeze lives in Coldland, a place where, we are told, everyone has a red nose from sneezing too much. You'd think that the inhabitants from such a hostile land would have descended from hardier stock and would have acclimatised to the environment. We never actually see any other locals, so this is the case with the other natives. Perhaps Mr. Sneeze is an immigrant.

Mr. Sneeze decides to solve his sneezing problem by leaving his hometown in search of a remedy. He has no plan, no impulse, no map, no compass, no sense of direction. Mr. Sneeze just sets off walking into the desolate blizzards and drifts hoping that an answer will present itself. This, let me tell you, is stupidity of the highest order - Sneeze doesn’t even tell anyone where he is headed - a terrible example to set an impressionable child. After a while he meets his salvation, the ghost in the machine of this story, an idiotic wizard.

The wizards soon reveals himself to be just as stupid, if not more so, than Mr. Sneeze. Terrifyingly, the wizard is able to marry great power to his ignorance.

This wizard casts a spell which rids Coldland of it's snowy condition. Alarmingly, he pays scant regard for the local fauna and wildlife, the economics and traditions of the local community or even whether local drainage can handle the enormous volume of melting snow. One senses an impending tragedy.

The local land changes until it is unrecognisable. Snow drifts are replaced by lush fields and forests. Blue seas and even bluer skies. If tourism doesn't destroy the charm of Coldland, jealous invaders from a foreign soil will surely take advantage of the good nature of the local before rampaging through the country with Viking-like ferocity.

Mr. Sneeze no longer has a red nose though, so there is a bright side.

Hargreaves shields us from the harsh realities of the situation. Whether this is for our own good, or to suit his own needs is unclear. Whether he is a naive optimist or a zealous creationist, or perhaps even an angry Greenpeace crusader making a subversive, sarcastic point... all this remains confusingly unclear. Exactly what is Hargreaves trying to say? The story remains an enigmatic riddle.

The punchline to the story is an unsatisfactory attempt at interactivity, urging the reader to scrutinize the previous pages in the manner of a spot-the-difference puzzle. Perhaps he's urging readers to scour the text for a deeper, darker, mare tragic thread to the storyline? If so, the answer is hidden to deeply. Whilst Mr. Sneeze presents an engaging caricature, his story is the first example of the Hargreaves putting a foot wrong.