THE SQUISHINESS OF THINGS

Strongly influenced by Gulliver’s Travels and Candide, and really written for the same audience, this visual and literary confection lampoons catalogers and other such know-it-alls. Having gained wealth and renown by listing or measuring everything from the “crunchy-squishiness” of bugs to the saltiness of ink, Hieronymus is outraged to find an unidentifiable hair on his desk. The discovery prompts an extended odyssey through the lands of the Bobnatabobs, who worship loud noises, the Pabnayabish, who have no long-term memory, and similar quirky-but-somehow-familiar folk, before a despairing return home—where the scholar’s assistant Pieter, a world authority on Napping, rightly suggests that the hair is Hieronymus’s own. Decorated with pictorial borders and elaborate, shadowy illustrations in a variety of Renaissance styles, this droll debut will appeal to readers, young or otherwise, who fancy themselves sophisticates. (Picture book. 11-13)