MIA AND THE ROCKET SHIP TREE

A little girl realizes that some adventures are fun on their own, but others really deserve friends in this self-illustrated ode to imagination from debut creator Gavish.

Blonde and blue-eyed Mia, wearing an orange spacesuit, and her koala robot, Koalabo, love to have space adventures. When they get to the park, Mia invites her friends (who have different skin tones; one of whom is in a wheelchair) to play space games. This is obviously Mia’s favorite game, and her friends don’t want to play it again, inviting her to join their games instead. But Mia and Koalabo are determined. They go to their treehouse rocket ship and travel to the purple planet of the Space Ticklers. At first, the ticklers don’t want her to play. Mia quickly proves that she’s a champion tickler, and they let her join. Eventually Mia gets bored of tickling—the only game the ticklers want to play. After a daring escape, Mia and Koalabo return home, where Mia takes off her spacesuit to have fun with her friends. Gavish’s acrylics on canvas add an eye-catching energy, with every space vista more outlandish than the next—scenes of “super sticky rainbow tickles” that Mia has to escape and clever koala-robot martial arts. Children who like to play the same game over and over again may get the subtle hint that sometimes it’s better to be social than always choose the same game, but it’s a low-key moral surrounded by brilliant colors, aliens, and robots.

For space fans with great imaginations, this will inspire further adventures.