That's Some Tasty Soup

Satire comes in many shapes and sizes. In this particular case, a children's story- or rather, what appears to be a child-friendly story. Guess looks really can be deceiving, right? It is certainly not a book one should be judging the cover of. The "Don't judge a book by it's cover" saying in fact, is the basic concept behind the picture book  There's a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm's Story by Gary Larsen.  This story about the environment, and one that readily mocks the knowledge people have about the world they live in, is a masterpiece of irony.

The book begins with a worm unsatisfied with being, well, a worm; but, to be honest, who wouldn't be? Anyway, the worm, who happens to be the son of a worm family, is then told a story by his proud worm father. It is begun with a princess named Harriet and the lovely walk she takes on a particularly nice day. As dear princess Harriet saunters about, she points out many animals in her forest and speaks ideas that seem normal, until of course father worm elaborates on Harriet's observations, making her seem- unfortunately- rather stupid to be frank. Even more ironic though is the fact that Harriet's beliefs are real common misconceptions spread by ignorant people. The book also uses intense diction in comparison to its silly art style, and ends up being much more morbid than one would expect. Larsen's choice of picture-book format, which juxtaposes his plot and word choice,  puts a great amount of emphasis on his main point, that one should understand something before blindly accepting it as it is.

With unexpected high diction, and the ability to turn common belief into a stupidly absurd opinion, the book manages expertly to point out a huge flaw in society. The ending has quite an unexpected finish, but I won't spoil it for you. It's definitely a "children's" book you should check out when you get the chance.

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The Onion: Collaborative Test Prep Group Sells answers to top 1%

After a countless amount of planning and preparing, the test prep book people around the country have been waiting for was finally released just this past Friday. The book aims to help students achieve a perfect score with only one skim through. "It works 99.9% of the time, and I think that's pretty good." Stated the statistics manager, "I've had zero complaints from the 23 kids who've bought our book, and we're proud of the help it provides for our future generations."

We interviewed both a parent of the book, and the user. Here is what they had to say:
Eleanor White: "As a mother, I think I understand most the importance of my child's success. You just really want them to do well in life... This book changed all my worries after he went through it with the tutor they gave him. I'm glad to say I no longer have to worry about Johnny living in our basement for the rest of our lives. It really is a life saver."
Johnathon White: "Oh yeah, uhh...it was pretty cool. Goin' through the book with the tutor was kinda bothersom', I just looked at the test I was taking tomorrow though. But I got inta Harvard so... yeah, its great I guess. Can I go back to my games?"

For as little as $1999999.99, the book comes with a tutor who prepares students' memorization skills as they read through the answers of all subject tests, ACTs, SATs, and more for the next 5 years. The first edition of the new series even comes with a bonus "I scored a perfect on my SAT test!" pen with genuine gold ink and a diamond-base eraser. New York Times has promoted the book, stating it as "A must have for all households!" and many more calling it "no less than a miracle." with 100% satisfaction rates, it is deemed the number one test prep book of all time.