Review - 'Slothilda'

What is Slothilda?

Dante Fabiero started a blog in 2014, and we should all be glad he did. The former Simpsons animator decided that adorable sloths are characters most people could probably relate to. In that, he was right. Many of us have great ambitions and desires, but struggle to keep up with them. Fabiero filled his blog with simple comics expressing those goals along with successes and failures in the quest to meet them. Slothilda is a book of those comics, geared toward the whole family.

Who is Slothilda?

Slothilda is, as you might expect, a sloth. She struggles with her innate laziness, like many of us do, while still trying to function, fit into society, and achieve her dreams. This book is full of single page comics, categorized into things like fitness and pet ownership. After all, what sloth’s life would be complete without an adorable pup? I know mine isn’t.

Fabiero does a fabulous job of capturing daily life and illustrating it in such a way that no one feels guilty or ashamed when the comic hits particularly close to home. Everyone in the family can probably relate to Slothilda’s desire to be better at things, despite often lacking discipline.

Why Slothilda belongs in your library

Slothilda is super cute, super relatable, and absolutely a joy to revisit. We’ve handed it around the whole family a few times now. Each time, someone relates to a different comic, and it’s turned out to be a handy reminder that no one is perfect. As a working mom in the middle of a journey to become healthier, I definitely relate to the fitness comics. My kids both laugh hardest at the pet-related ones, but ask questions that I can answer with real-world experience when they get to the Work and Money chapters. I didn’t expect that benefit, but it’s welcome.

One thing that sets Slothilda aside from many is her consistent acceptance of life as it is. She fails, and she struggles, and sometimes she falls asleep at work. Despite these things, she keeps a positive attitude and just takes things as they come. That’s a lesson I hope to learn from her. She doesn’t love herself any less, even when she has ambitions and goals to improve herself. I love that about her.

Peanut the Corgi

If Peanut the Corgi deserves his own chapter in the book, he certainly deserves his own review here. While it can easily be said that I suffer from a mild Corgi obsession, the slice of life that Peanut adds to Slothilda is certainly a heartwarming one. From eating everything in reach to a pup who always greets you with excitement when you return, Peanut reminds us that even a misbehaving furbaby is still lovable. Nearly every pet parent can vouch for the accuracy on these pages, and some comics are so on target that you’ll get up and go check to be sure your dogs aren’t rooting around in the garbage right that moment. Fabiero’s own dog is clearly the inspiration for Peanut, making the entire book that much more relatable to my family.