Starred review from April 17, 2017
A pompous mouse with a bow tie and spectacles narrates this stylish addition to the substantial shelf of meta books. “This book will not be fun,” he announces, but readers cannot help but notice a whale sailing into the spread behind him. The mouse turns to the audience: “I don’t know why you’re still here. Even this flying whale is bored, bored, bored.” Double take. “Wait, did you see that flying whale?” Additional interruptions ruffle the mouse’s composure, producing more laughs, until he stumbles on a “giant zero-gravity dance party” filled with nattily attired “impossible creatures” grooving to the beat. The rhythm is infectious, and the mouse can’t resist: “Look at me! I’m ‘shaking my bottom,’ as it were.” He’s lit! On the final pages, the mouse stiffens right up again, but readers have seen another side of him. Everybody knows a self-important prig they wish would just drop the pretension, and newcomer Dunlap’s tale scratches that itch. Her dialogue (well, monologue) shines, and Tallec’s (Who What Where?) artwork, like the mouse himself, is impeccably turned out. Ages 3–7. Author’s agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. Illustrator’s agent: Michaela Kozaric, Quelle Belle Histoire.
March 15, 2017
Dunlap's picture-book debut starts on the jacket flap with a welcome and assurances that this is truly a no-nonsense title. Tallec imagines the first-person narrator as a straight-laced, bow tie-wearing, bespectacled mouse; the rodent appears in the empty white space carrying a book and potted plant. As it reads quietly on recto, back facing the gutter, the head of a Word-Eating Flying Whale (identified in the very book the mouse is reading) enters stage left. The audience is encouraged to ignore this disturbance. When the mammal returns with a Glow-in-the-Dark Kung Fu Worm, the urge to follow tiny footprints across the now-charcoal pages proves irresistible to the beleaguered protagonist--if only to quell the excitement. The turning page reveals a psychedelic dance party, and all bets are off. Toe tapping and bottom shaking take over. The mouse justifies the title's promise at the conclusion, pointing out that the book -was not fun for YOU. / I had a great time.- Tallec's adroit caricatures and talent for building visual drama are a welcome pairing with the monologue voiced by the scholarly rodent. Will young listeners catch the humor in the mouse's understated observation that the music has -plenty of notes and a fine, sturdy rhythm- while the orange, brown, green, and blue creatures bop with abandon? The fun shines through, although adult readers weary of metafiction related to books may opt out. (Picture book. 4-6)
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May 15, 2017
Grades 1-3 Readers should take the titular warningdelivered by a prim, bookish mouse sporting oversize eyeglassesseriously, as it turns out to be on target. At first, it seems like misdirection: a series of surreal antics begins immediately as a whale flies into view from the upper corner, culminating in a GIANT ZERO-GRAVITY DANCE PARTY that has even the mouse shaking my bottom, ' as it were. But after the other dancers, a motley array of unsmiling pets, people, and less identifiable creatures, file off impassively to continue the party elsewhere, the mouse announces that maybe it was not fun for YOU. I had a great time, and continues on his way with a smug little smile. How rare is it to encounter in picture books such a charmless, unlikable protagonistnot to mention a story line that gives the nod to ostracism rather than inclusiveness? A final glimpse of the narrator possibly trying to rejoin the celebratory mob even adds a dash of ambiguity to this snarky debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)
January 1, 2018
"I'm just going to...wait for the book to be over. / I don't know why you're still here," an uptight mouse says to readers. Then a flying whale literally eats his words, launching an amusing adventure that ultimately unleashes the mouse's inner party animal. Children's smiles will widen as the illustrations brighten and the "GIANT ZERO-GRAVITY DANCE PARTY" starts raging.
(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)