J'aime pas #4

A delightfully grumpy ode to school-day dread, this 2007 Hoëbeke volume from Riss captures the spirit of reluctant students everywhere. The cover sets the tone perfectly: two kids sit at a wooden school desk — one bug-eyed with anxiety, the other whistling carelessly — flanked by a chained, scowling beast wedged right between them, the ultimate embodiment of everything menacing about the classroom. It's the kind of sharp, funny cartooning that makes you laugh in recognition even as you sympathize with every kid who ever watched the clock tick slowly toward recess.