POG AND PICKLE'S GREAT ESCAPE

After a guinea pig takes off on an adventure, her romantic partner decides he can’t be without her.

Guinea pig couple Pog and Pickle are among the pets who belong to a pale-skinned human family, and while the two are close, they’re also very different: “Pog wanted more than to live in a hutch. / ‘There’s a massive world out there—I haven’t seen much.’” So while the humans are packing for a two-week trip to Peru, Pog sneaks into their luggage. Pog leaves Pickle a note—“Gone to PERU. Back soon!”—but he’s still undone. “‘What if she never comes back?’ Pickle groaned. / ‘I’ll have to go with her…I can’t be alone!’” He sets off to find her, and upon their reunion in an animal-packed tropical paradise, Pickle finally understands the allure of leaving one’s comfort zone. Montgomery’s salute to the adventuresome spirit is told with near-faultless, frequently Seussian rhymes (“Pickle had never seen so many piggies! / Furries and spikies and smallies and biggies”). The story’s straight-up, no-snark emotional sincerity gives it a throwback quality, as does Warburton’s digital art, which has a watercolory brightness and a lovingly rendered look as it captures the inventive means by which Pickle and Pog get by in a world not scaled to their dimensions.

An endearing, old-fashioned rhyming tale, sure to have readers clamoring for another installment.