PARTY ANIMALS!

A teeming tower of birthday hullaballoo over 6 feet (about 190 cm) high.

The hoopoe has invited her animal friends to her 10th birthday party—and she has a lot of friends. Here, with casual disregard for constraints of weight or gravity, over 100 creatures from snail to snow leopard, flying squirrels to flamingos stack themselves one atop another. They make a dazzling mob of flat shapes and bright colors, with streamers, presents, balloons, and a vertiginous layer cake adding to the festive frenzy. To tempt viewers into taking closer looks Dieudonné supplies both small, labeled versions of each party guest around the edges and leading comments or questions: “Who’s hiding under a tortoise shell? And who’s pretending to be a parrot?” Half the length of the author’s Megalopolis (2016) but likewise formatted as a long strip folded to fit between two covers, the outing is made to be laid on the floor or a long table and read section by section as it unfolds. An alliterative (uncredited) translation of the French original (“The walrus warbles, the turkey trills, the fox yodels and the swan squeals, while the crocodile croons tunefully”) adds further swing to a party that’s only just getting started by the final panel.

Heaping helpings of hurrahs for the hoopoe! (Picture book. 6-8)