Meet 'Little Miss Basic' and 'Mr. Humblebrag': N.J. author parodies people you love to hate

Writer offers new take on the 'Mr. Men' and 'Little Miss' children's books

Thanks to the "Mr. Men" and "Little Miss" series of children's books created by the English author and illustrator Roger Hargreaves in the 1970s and '80s, the world knows Mr. Happy, Mr. Messy, Little Miss Sunshine and Little Miss Bossy. These brightly colored, round-faced caricatures relayed lessons about the human condition to the youngest readers.

Now, say hello to the smartphone-toting "Little Miss Basic," "Little Miss Overshare," "Mr. Humblebrag" and "Mr. Selfie." This string of 21st-century personalities, all heavily influenced -- and enabled -- by the culture of social media, are the first characters in the "Little Miss and Mr. Me Me Me" series (Three Rivers Press, October 2015), one New Jersey writer's stab at the now-thriving genre of adult children's book parody. 

To be clear, the book series, while playfully illustrated, is not for children. 

Dan Zevin, 51, the author of the four books, is a humor writer who lives in Westchester, N.Y., but hails from Essex County. He calls his characters "modern-day dysfunctional personality types."

Zevin used to read the original "Mr. Men" and "Little Miss" books to his own children, and has a Hargreaves collection at his parents' house in Short Hills. But he'll only allow his oldest, 12-year-old Leo, to see his new series. 

Coming in 2016: 'Little Miss Passive-Aggressive' and 'Mr. Emotionally Unavailable.' (Three Rivers Press)
 

"They're not dirty," Zevin says. "They're just sort of edgy." 

The market for children's books designed for adults has surged in recent years. One of the more successful children's book satires in recent memory, "Go the F--- to Sleep" (Akashic Books, 2011), a play on a bedtime story, was penned by former Rutgers professor Adam Mansbach. It reached the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list and hit No. 1 on Amazon before it was even released, leading to sales of more than 1.5 million copies and translation into 30 languages.

The author, Dan Zevin. (Courtesy Dan Zevin)
 

Zevin's "Mr. Men" and "Little Miss" parodies are written with a similar spirit of critical mockery but with more outright levity than Mansbach's exasperated parent. 

"The original ('Mr. Men' and 'Little Miss') books were meant to teach children lessons about bad behavior (i.e., don't be messy, a chatterbox, bossy, etc.) but what we loved about Dan's parodies is that they skewer today's regrettable, completely annoying adult behaviors," writes Amanda Patten, senior editor at Crown Publishing Group, in an email message. (Crown is the division of Random House of which Zevin's publisher, Three Rivers Press, is an imprint.)

"These children's book parodies for adults seem to be resonating because today's overworked, overtired parents need a laugh," Patten says. 

Zevin's formula for modern satire of the Mr. Men and Little Misses is as follows: dysfunction plus social media equals "comedy gold." His publisher started Twitter accounts for each character. ("Just ate 4 Girl Scout Samoas but meditated during it so the thought of what I was doing would pass thru my mind and I would gently let it go," Little Miss Basic recently tweeted.)

RELATED: Rad dad: Dan Zevin 'Gets a Minivan,' Thurber Prize for humor writing

Zevin, who won the Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2013 for his book "Dan Gets a Minivan: Life at the Intersection of Dude and Dad" (Scribner, 2012), used the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to help him with his portrayal of personality types. 

Mr. Selfie, for example, may have his phone glued to his hand as a result of his penchant for taking and sharing self-portraits, but he also exhibits "a complete narcissistic personality disorder," Zevin says. 

Mr. Humblebrag -- the term was coined by "Parks and Recreation" writer Harris Wittels in 2010 -- is a boastful person who thinks it's OK to brag if he injects a little humility into his bragging. ("Everybody loves a winner, as long as he acts like a loser," Mr. Humblebrag says at the start of that book.)

A page from 'Mr. Selfie.' (Three Rivers Press)
 

Little Miss Basic, meanwhile, is similarly occupied with social media, but can be generally diagnosed as displaying questionable perceptions and priorities. For instance, she admires a homeless man for his sticklike body.

Zevin writes: "He is vegan, she thought. Or possibly paleo." The father of two first noticed the "basic" set -- the Urban Dictionary defines this type of person as possessing "obscenely obvious" behavior, wardrobe or actions -- by their identical Uggs and lattes. 

"Not everyone understands what that is," Zevin says, comparing this "type" to the valley girls of his youth. "Millennials know. I asked my babysitter for help." 

RELATED: 'Go the F--- to Sleep': An ode to childhood insomnia

Little Miss Overshare, however, is not necessarily defined by her age. The "TMI" problem isn't confined to one generation, but "often not millennials," Zevin says. "It's their mothers." The writer was recently horrified to see that a parent had thought it acceptable to share a photo of her child's tooth on social media, fresh out of the mouth and still bloody. 

The illustrator of the book, Dylan Klymenko, is also from Short Hills -- a fact Zevin discovered only after the two had been corresponding for weeks online. Klymenko, 29, wasn't as familiar with the original books, and found himself sitting hunched over on a chair for toddlers at the Millburn Free Public Library to do research. 

Little Miss Basic goes out on the town. (Three Rivers Press)
 

Klymenko, a former advertising writer, started the one-panel web comic "Upside Down Grin" in 2011. His dot-dot smile illustration style, which has been compared to the type of characters in the popular Cartoon Network series "Adventure Time," also has much in common with the innocent, whimsical "Mr. Men" and "Little Miss" characters drawn by Hargreaves.

And while children's book satires have proven to be popular with parents and other adult audiences, Klymenko thinks a certain nostalgia factor also drives those familiar with the original books to the "Mr." and "Little Miss" parodies. 

In March, Klymenko and Zevin will debut another lineup of misfits -- "Little Miss Passive-Aggressive," "Mr. Emotionally Unavailable," "Little Miss Hot Mess" and "Mr. Baller." 

The artist says the goal was to have "cute characters behave in non-cute ways." 

Mr. Selfie, for example, having been gored by a wildebeast at the zoo because he insisted on taking a selfie inside its cage, is hospitalized. He quickly snaps a selfie of his injuries to share on Facebook. 

The term 'humblebrag' didn't exist when Roger Hargreaves created the 'Mr. Men' series. (Three Rivers Press)
 

"At that moment, he felt like one lucky fellow," Zevin writes. "His sympathy selfie was killing it! Mr. Selfie had lost a leg, yet he'd gained something far more valuable. A sh-tload of Likes."

"Go the F--- to Sleep," which got a sequel last year called "You Have to F---ing Eat," made even more waves when Samuel L. Jackson performed a reading of the book (the sequel got treatments from Bryan Cranston and Stephen Fry). There was something especially compelling about such a well-known voice narrating the satire.

Legendary TV host Dick Cavett sat for a reading of "Mr. Humblebrag" for comedy website Funny or Die after Zevin happened to meet him at an event on Long Island. It's hard not to smile when Cavett utters the words "hashtag grateful" and "hashtag poor." 

And Klymenko says that even though the aim is comedy, there's a certain truth to the books -- for this reason, Little Miss Basic and Mr. Selfie are his favorites. 

"You're either an offender yourself or you know someone who is," he says. "I know someone for each one of those characters."