Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo

by Chronicle Books, Marlon Bundo, Jill Twiss (Illustrator)

Overview

HBO's Emmy-winning Last Week Tonight with John Oliver presents a children's book about a Very Special boy bunny who falls in love with another boy bunny.

100 percent of Last Week Tonight's proceeds will be donated to The Trevor Project and AIDS United.

Meet Marlon Bundo, a lonely bunny who lives with his Grampa Mike Pence, the former Vice President of the United States. But on this Very Special Day, Marlon's life is about to change forever ...

With its message of tolerance and advocacy, this charming bunny book for kids explores issues of same sex marriage and democracy. Sweet, funny, and beautifully illustrated, this better Bundo book is dedicated to every bunny who has ever felt different.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND #1 AMAZON BESTSELLER: A runaway hit that hopped to the top of the charts nationwide! As John Oliver explained on the Ellen DeGeneres talk show, his book’s gay Marlon Bundo gets married to his bunny boyfriend “because that’s the world we want to live in.”

A PETER RABBIT BOOK FOR MODERN FAMILIES: Love is love in one of the few picture books that is equally a satisfying bedtime story and a timely and vital LGBTQ book for children (and their grownups).

POPULAR AUDIOBOOK: The audiobook version is read by Jim Parsons and special guests Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jeff Garlin, Ellie Kemper, John Lithgow, Jack McBrayer, and RuPaul.
 

Perfect for:

• Fans of John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Samantha Bee
• Go-to gift for children's birthdays, same-sex couples welcoming a new baby, and friends who love parody humor
• Parents seeking the best books about love and marriage to share with their kids
• Adding to the shelf with books like And Tango Makes Three, Julián Is a Mermaid, Whose Boat Is This Boat?, and Go the F**k to Sleep

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452173801
Publisher:	Chronicle Books LLC
Publication date:	03/18/2018
Series:	HBO Series
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	75,602
Product dimensions:	10.20(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

MARLON BUNDO is a very fun bunny who recently relocated to Washington, D.C. from his home in Indiana. He enjoys hopping through the garden, eating all his vegetables, and hula-hooping.

Editorial Reviews

05/07/2018
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver staffer Twiss debuts with an accomplished parody of Charlotte and Karen Pence’s Marlon Bundo’s Day in the Life of the Vice President (Regnery Kids). Bow tie-wearing bunny Marlon Bundo lives with his “grampa,” Vice President Mike Pence, “in an old, stuffy house on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory.” He is lonely and bored until the day he falls in love with bunny Wesley: “He was bunny-beautiful.” Readers are sure to agree: Wesley is floppy-eared, butterscotch colored, and wears a geeky-chic pair of blue eye glasses. After a perfect day together, Marlon and Wesley announce plans to marry. Animal friends, including a badger, a bejeweled turtle, and a hedgehog, work together to defeat—via casting their ballots—the Stink Bug, an impish green figure in a suit and tie who insists that “Boy Bunnies Don’t Marry Boy Bunnies!” While the most likely readers will initially be the adults who pick up on the allusions to Trump-era politics, there’s much for kids to like in Keller’s (a pseudonym of Gerald Kelley) funny, earnest cast of anthropomorphic animals. A portion of proceeds from sales go to the Trevor Project and AIDS United. Ages 5–8. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Good for a chuckle for adults who support LGBTQ rights." -Kirkus Reviews

"A joy... Ignore the grumbling about Oliver turning the bunny America deserves into a metaphor for partisan politics, because the book is a 40-page triumph."
-Esquire

“Bedtime stories are great for putting kids to sleep, but in our house, we prefer stories like A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo that help us stay woke.”
-Misha Collins, Actor, Activist and Parent

"This cute, funny, and inclusive picture book has a positive message about celebrating who you are and loving whom you want." - Common Sense Media

"It’s unbelievably adorable." --Scary Mommy

“What makes A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo particularly strong is that, while an unabashed political parody, it also stands on its own as a children’s book. It would have been easy for John Oliver’s team to lean heavily on the gimmick of satirizing a loathed figure in American politics, but they instead focused on developing a charming story with genuinely funny jokes, making a story for kids that have little interest in keeping up with the news (which would be most kids).”
-Globe Mail

“A work of political satire that is also a great children's book.” -Anita Silvey, author of 100 Best Books for Children and Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book

"This is a spectacular children's book, one that stresses the most important lessons of love, democracy and acceptance...I won't wreck the ending, but I will say there is good reason to make this a bestseller. Any children's book that can move me to mist up because, ultimately, love does conquer all, is a book worth sharing."
--The Star-Ledger

"...an ideal children's book for a new generation and a Pride-approved addition to any coffee table."
- Boise Weekly

"Every once in awhile, you come across a book that is not only well-written, but that had the potential to be revolutionary. A Day In The Life of Marlon Bundo is one of those books, especially because it is a bold, humorous, and heartening tribute to 'any bunny who has ever felt different'. Similarly, it is also a jab at the 'Stink Bugs' of the world who don’t understand how others can lead lives unlike their own...an important book that acknowledges and celebrates our differences."
-Davenport, IA Library

“An accomplished parody… there’s much for kids to like in the funny, earnest cast of anthropomorphic animals.”
-Publishers Weekly

"Sweet and incredibly lovable"
-WomansDay.com

“Above all, this is a sweet and funny book about of tolerance, friendship, and the one message even our youngest kids can grasp perhaps more easily than perhaps any other: Love is love. I know my own kids would love getting this for Easter.” - Cool Mom Picks

"Parents who want kids to know love is love will feel good helping their kids build values, but they’re also handing them a funny, thoughtful, well-written, and well-illustrated story."
-Fatherly

"Hilarious and charming."
-People Magazine

"An affirming book for children that goes beyond the adults-only type of parody titles that have gained popularity in recent years." --School Library Journal

From the Publisher

2018-03-20
In direct response to Charlotte Pence and Karen Pence's anodyne Marlon Bundo's A Day in the Life of the Vice President (2018), a lifted middle finger to Vice President Mike Pence's homophobia.Informing readers that "this story isn't going to be about [the vice president], because he isn't very fun," black-and-white bunny Marlon Bundo relates the events of his Very Special Day, which really begins when he espies Wesley, a "bunny-beautiful" lop-eared, bespectacled brown rabbit, in the garden. (In Keller's accompanying illustration, Wesley is depicted heroically from a low perspective, enhaloed in the sun's golden rays.) They hop happily together through house and garden and then decide to marry, at which point The Stink Bug (bearing a head of recognizable white hair) appears on the scene to tell them that "Boy Bunnies Don't Marry Boy Bunnies!" Marlon Bundo, Wesley, and their animal friends discuss their various differences and then vote The Stink Bug "not in charge." Attended by "two handsome grooms-otters," Marlon Bundo and Wesley are then married by a lesbian cat minister. Adult viewers of the satirical TV show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which is behind this stunt, will love it. However, even as it delivers its message, the story takes easy jabs at the format it's delivered in, and the result is yet another tiresome political picture book that's nominally for children but really winks at other adults over their heads. Proceeds go to the Trevor Project and AIDS United.Good for a chuckle for adults who support LGBTQ rights, but those who want to share inclusive stories with children should look elsewhere. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews