I Was a Child is an illustrated memoir by Bruce Eric Kaplan the renowned New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan also known as BEK is one of the most celebrated and admired cartoonists in America I Was a Child is the story of his childhood in suburban New Jersey detailing the small moments we all experience going to school playing with friends family dinners watching TV on a hot summer night and so on It would seem like a conventional childhood although Kaplans anecdotes are accompanied by his signature drawings of family outings and life at home-road trips milk crates hamsters ashtrays a toupee a platypus and much more Kaplans cartoons although simple are never straightforward they encompass an easy irony and dark humor that often cuts straight to the truth of experience Brilliantly relatable and genuinely moving I Was a Child is about our attempts to understand the mysteries that are our parents our families and ourselves.
