THE FANCIEST FLOWER

The comical rise and fall of a commercial craze.

Ferny O’Violet raises and sells “the most flowery flowers.” Confronting an imperious and influential buyer who rejects all conventional posies, Ferny borrows the central trick in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” touting an ordinary fork as the “fanciest flower in the whole entire world.” It’s unaccompanied even by minimal greenery, nor wrapped in florist’s paper, but it’s immediately a hit. A consumer mania ensues. While selling out all her forks (and additional cutlery), Ferny neglects her living plants, which die. When one little boy begs for a final flower, Ferny finds a sole survivor and sells it to him. Unprompted, she admits her scam to her shocked clients, including a talking, bloom-loving beagle. They all miss real flowers, so she quickly restores her original business, now removing forks from her life entirely. A final frame features a forkless fail: Ferny attempts to twine spaghetti, with sauce, on a flower stem. Benton’s illustrations are as absurd as the story, with forks galore poking from pots and even serving as the centerpiece at an elegant dinner party. Ferny and friends stare with extra-large, round, cartoony eyes, their rubbery bodies frolicking in neon-bright spaces. Benton has crafted an effective parable about how marketing hype can create its own dead end, dressed in delightful nonsense to appeal to lovers of the ridiculous. Ferny’s pale-skinned and red-haired; the supporting cast is diverse.

A frivolous, fun account of a fashionable fad’s undoing.