Not a Smiley Guy

Likely we have all been told to smile when we do not feel like smiling. When it happens to me, I experience thoughts of annoyance, thinking that it is not my job to smile for you just because you want me to. This is the main idea of Not a Smiley Guy, by Polly Horvath, illustrated by Boris Kulikov.

Ernest is born to a nice set of parents, but they always want him to smile, even though he does not want to. As he grows up, he does many things that please his parents, but his parents still want more: they want him to smile. Ernest’s parents take him on adventures and outings to get him to smile, and, finally, after a portrait session with a photographer, Ernest’s exasperated father asks him what exactly it is that he wants. Ernest responds with “An elephant”. The next morning, Ernest receives what he asks for, an elephant named Marcia. The elephant goes to school with Ernest, but, on the way home from school, his parents ask him why he still will not smile even though he now has his elephant. Ernest explains to them that he is happy, almost always happy, in fact, but “I’m just not a smiley guy”. Ernest agrees that, instead of smiling, sometimes he will dance a little jig to show he is happy. His parents seem content with this and tell Ernest that “We love you anyway” and that he can keep Marcia. The book ends with Ernest’s realizing he has everything he wants in life and that, “You don’t have to change, but for the people you love you do what you can.”

The illustrations in mixed media suit the text well, and the darkness of the pictures is a noticeable and suggestive reflection of Ernest’s unsmiley view of the world. Boris Kulikov has done a splendid job of hiding elephants within each two-page illustration. Upon subsequent rereadings of the book, young readers will enjoy finding the elephants hidden among the clouds, in the shadows, and in balloons.

I like the idea of the book, that everyone feels and expresses emotions differently. As parents, we all want our kids to be happy, and, as a parent of a child who is also not a smiley guy, it is certainly a story to which I can relate. Some readers may not care for the fact that, at the end of the story, Ernest gives in and tries to make his parents happy. However, there is a lot of life truth in the message of compromising for the ones you love. There is also the potentially concerning message that parents will or should give a child whatever they want to make them happy.

My main issue with the text, however, is the elephant. Why does Ernest want an elephant? Is the elephant real? Or is the elephant a metaphor for something? If so, what? I have thought and thought about these questions and have no answers. My best guess is that something very out of the ordinary makes Ernest happy, but it still won’t make him smile. But this seems very unsatisfactory in terms of the realism of the elephant and the fact that Ernest was generally happy anyway, even before the elephant.

While the text has a good theme, the writing is sometimes witty, and the illustrations work with the text well, Not a Smiley Guy just does not execute in a satisfactory way. It is a rather strange book with the smiley plot and the elephant plot failing to weave together to create a cohesive story.