DODO GETS MARRIED

Operating on the premise that there’s someone for everyone, the author of Lottie’s New Friend (1999) hooks up Lottie’s long-beaked Germanic acquaintance Dodo with a bitter, one-legged ex-helicopter pilot. Right. Though Captain Vince finally pops the question, it’s Dodo who first breaks the ice, rhapsodizing over the whirligigs in his front yard (“ ‘Just look at zem go round and round’ ”), feeding him seaweed sandwiches, and chattering on about her father’s glass eye. By summer they’re engaged, and aside from a few little complications—Dodo’s beauty bath the night before leaves her dyed bright green and phosphorescent—the wedding proceeds joyfully. Despite Mathers’s oddly shaped animal cast and her funny little details (Dodo spells out her acceptance with laundry), there’s an adult sensibility to much of this, but younger readers will respond to its warmth and good humor. (Picture book. 5-7)