What’s not to love about undies? They keep you comfy, but more importantly, come in an infinite variety of colours and patterns, suitable for nearly every occasion. It is hardly surprising that such a momentous and important item of clothing is celebrated by a wealth of picture books for children.
What Colour are your Knickers? by Sam Lloyd introduces two important concepts: undies are interesting, and bottoms are funny. Each page shows a friendly cartoon animal, either clothed or posed behind strategically placed greenery, who is asked “What Colour are your Knickers?” Readers can lift the flap to find the answer and see the knickers in question. Until the last page that is, when lifting the leaves strategically covering the nether regions of an elephant reveals that he has forgotten to put on any knickers at all! The rhythmic repetition of the question, the colour based answer, simple enough for a toddler to give, and the bare bottom joke combine to make this a lovely book, suitable to read with a young child.
The infinite variety of undies is celebrated by Giles Andreae in More Pants. All types of people and animals wear pants decorated to reflect their suitability for a variety of occasions: an Egyptian mummy wears pyramid patterns, a gingerbread man wears icing sugar pants and a dapper gentleman in a tail coat wears a pair of ‘dancing with the queen pants’ decorated with orb, sceptre and crown. There’s a submarine shaped like a giant pair of yellow undies and a Viking ship with pair of pants boldly emblazoned on its sail. Andreae uses simple rhyme, rhythm and humour that are perfectly complemented by Nick Sharratt’s bold and bright and funny illustrations. Also included: a fart joke, a vigorous bottom scratch and an invitation to join the exuberant children on the last page in leaping high to celebrate undies ownership.
It’s all very well to celebrate the infinite variety of undies, but it’s also important to examine the very important role that they have played in human development and society. Slightly older readers will enjoy the stories told by Claire Freedman & Ben Cort in Dinosaurs Love Underpants, Aliens Love Underpants and Aliens In Underpants Save the World.
It seems that ancient people invented underpants to avoid being nude and rude. Dinosaurs, impressed, stole the undies, but could not share amongst themselves, resulting in “a mighty pants war”. Thus the entire dinosaur race was wiped out in, clearing the field for people to flourish and wear their undies in peace.
Aliens too, are keen on undies. In fact the primary reason for extraterrestrial visits to Earth is to steal our undies, as there are none in space. When the Earth is threatened by a meteorite on a collision course, aliens rush to save us, constructing a giant pair of undies, and deflecting the meteorite back into space with some springy knicker elastic.
These books combine the simple rhyme and variety of undies found in the books for younger readers with engaging stories and the lesson that undies have saved the human race on more than one occasion. It is interesting that while bottom humour, in the form of some blushing naked cave people, can be found in the first book; an important cultural difference is highlighted by the others: aliens do not seem to find bottoms either embarrassing or funny.
