DANNY DIAMONDBACK

A lonely young rattlesnake’s search for friends comes to an end when he joins a band, and later rescues a prairie dog town from coyotes in this slickly illustrated debut. Jackson definitely calls on his expertise as a production designer for Shrek and other animated films for the art, using photorealistic digital modeling to create a series of ground-level Southwestern scenes that are inhabited by a large cast of desert critters sporting comical human expressions and the occasional item of (scaled-down) human dress. A bit too sheltered by his parents, peaceable Danny can’t understand why everyone flees at his approach—but he hooks up at last as a percussionist with the “Hoppin’ Jalapeños,” and the predators he ultimately faces turn out to be such big fans that an autograph sends them off in bliss. The plot’s less memorable than the art, but readers raised on Over the Hedge and like fare will be in familiar territory. (Picture book. 6-8)