Squirrel Do Bad

Gr 2-5–Trapped with an overprotective father, purple-haired, beige-skinned Wendy the Wanderer leaves home at the first opportunity to explore the neighboring town of Trubble, which is filled with unique personalities, including anthropomorphic animals. When Wendy gives a squirrel a sugary drink, a chain of events is set off like a butterfly effect over the rest of the town, and nothing will ever be the same. This book specializes in surreal humor (a Chihuahua reads a mostly inaccurately reported newspaper written by an octopus). Chapter headings either make hyperbolic claims or flatly state the obvious (“Chapter Nine, Which Is One After Eight”). A matter-of-fact omniscient narrator indulges and presents the cast and their highjinks. The narrative makes chaotic leaps from character to character, but follows a strange logic of its own that leads to hilarious callbacks and nonsequiturs. Layouts are almost universally two panels wide and three panels tall. Characters have a simplified, cartoonish look, reminiscent of Pastis’s comic Pearls Before Swine. Townspeople are diverse in skin color.