FINLEY

Arriving in Paris, the titular ungulate has trouble persuading designers to make him a suit.

“Finley the friendliest moose” dreams of traveling to faraway places. He’s particularly interested in Paris: its sights, sounds, and smells—and especially its fashion. “Finley longed to attend Fashion Week in a stylish suit designed just for him! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” Youngsters who were delighted by the protagonist’s extreme efforts to board a train in Finley: A Moose on the Caboose (2023) will be relieved to see he has little trouble traveling by plane (he secretly squeezes in among the pets in the cargo hold). Instead, his challenge comes from the Parisian design houses (among them “Dristian Chior” and “Vouis Luitton”), which appear to have a prejudice against moose. (No matter that Finley delivers every request with a polite “S’il vous plaît.”) After a series of rejections, Finley saves a basket-carrying woman named Giselle from a fall, and his luck changes. Giselle is a fashion designer, happy to design a chartreuse suit for her hero. The moose’s exuberant, persevering nature is a constant in both the text and the digital art—as is humor. The lighthearted narrative is peppered with cultural tidbits and French words, while the images of Finley striking dramatic poses are utterly charming. Giselle is tan-skinned; other human characters vary in skin tone.

Young fashionistas will have a blast.