ANIMAL BAND

When their human owners motor off, two dogs and a cat—joined by “the gang from the zoo”—jam on a collection of actual and improvised instruments. Plotted visually, Jennings’s debut teems with manic, stock cartoon-inspired activity. The text aspires to a rollicking rhythm befitting the musical chaos, but its tired rhyme, imperfect scansion and overuse of flat, spondaic feet fail to lift it above average. Digitally colored drawings favor flat fields in tones of gray, brown and yellow-green with black contours. There’s a nod to Dr. Seuss, in the form of the derivative, deus-ex-machina “clatterazoo,” produced so that dog Thomas has something to play. With its die-cut dust jacket and familiar CG iconography, this will appeal to some pre-diabetic ’toon gazers but adds little of note to the current glut of retro-cartoon merch. (Picture book. 3-5)