HOTEL FANTASTIC

All manner of monster and heroes are welcome at the Hotel Fantastic, but beware Soror Horribilis!

The Hotel Fantastic is a getaway like no other; there are rooms for every type of being: underwater rooms for mermaids, giant rooms for giants, anti-gravity rooms for ETs. There are even “sky rooms” for those who fly. The rooftop pool is a perfect place to play for pirates and giant squids. There is an all-night ballroom in the basement and an infirmary that offers such upgrades as “supersonic rocket-feet.” The security force is second to none, but even they can’t handle the fiery breath, the knobby knees, the deadly stare of the particularly nasty specimen of Soror Horribilis! Gibault’s bright, digitally rendered cartoon illustrations are full of robots, aliens, superheroes, monsters, and humor. It’s hard to distinguish the guests from the staff; but that makes perfect sense at the wide-angled visual punchline at the close, which shows a human girl shaking a superhero doll she has just grabbed from the “hotel.” She’s yelling (at her brother, the narrator), “I told you a million times not to put YOUR toys in MY dollhouse.” Both kids are pale-skinned redheads.

Foolish fantastic fun with enough goofy details to warrant repeated reads.