SQUIRRELLY GRAY

Here, alternative-comics–artist Kochalka looks to a younger audience with a mixed-format tale featuring a bored squirrel who has adventures once he turns his TV off. The rhymed text is not only clunky—“Young Squirrelly Gray lived in a tree / And spent his time in bed, / Just watching static on TV, / Quite bored out of his head”—but superfluous, as the art and dialogue in the accompanying cartoon panels tell the entire story. Venturing out into the gray, rainy world, Squirrelly rescues the Tooth Fairy from a spider web, gets a magic acorn in return and is then accosted by a hungry fox (“Are you in need of assistance, my succulent young fellow?”), who inadvertently breaks the nut open to release a dazzling rainbow across suddenly blue skies. It’s all a bit slight, but the shiny cover, simply drawn art and jaunty protagonist will draw readers. (Picture book. 6-8)