MAX AND THE LOST NOTE

A London-based art director and illustrator delivers a jazz-inspired effort whose snappy illustrations can’t redeem its wobbly logic. Hip cat Max loses a note while composing a song. After looking everywhere at home, he widens his search by visiting musical friends. Though the singing Felines, saxophonist Dexter, trumpeter Miles and others (cats, all) deliver gorgeous tunes, Max doesn’t hear his lost note among theirs. Back home, Max spots his note, stuck to the sole of a kicked-off loafer. “He must have trodden on it while he was writing his new tune.” Marsh fails to discriminate between the visual and aural manifestations of musical notes. Black notes pepper nearly every spread, dancing from horns and surrounding birds in hep, funky streetscapes. Yet the search propelling Max from flutist to bassist is one of intent listening—making the switch back to that stuck-on, two-dimensional note all the more lead-footed. Jazz’s ability to delight comes across via bright ink-and-watercolor pictures that offer kid-appealing details, but an omnipresent, curiously despondent mouse dampens the effect. Disappointingly discordant. (Picture book. 4-6)