In this picture book from singer Parton and co-author Perl, a small French bulldog goes to Nashville, joins a band, fends off bullies, and meets one of the queens of country music. In line with Buzzeo’s elegantly spare text, Small uses neutral washes with loosely drawn lines and highlights of restrained color to depict the urbane lad and his equally dapper companion making themselves comfortably at home in upper-crust digs.Ī happy tale of domestic amity, with a well-set-up punchline. Crisis looms when Elliot’s still strangely oblivious father heads for the bathroom-but, as observers sharp enough to have picked up some subtle visual clues will understand, Magellan isn’t the only exotic animal in the house, and the old man has good reason to be more surprised than shocked to find himself sharing the tub with an interloper. He stashes his diminutive new buddy amid frozen seafood in the fridge overnight, then leaves him splashing around in a tub of extra-cold water the next day.

Using a hose, a backyard wading pool and an overpowered air conditioner, he sets up a rink in his bedroom. Rather than hit the gift shop, though, he pops a live one he dubs “Magellan” into his backpack. (Jan.Boy and Antarctic bird bond in a tongue-in-cheek tale keyed by artful misdirection.ĭrawn to an aquarium’s penguin exhibit because the birds resemble his own tuxedo-wearing self, young Elliot secures permission from his (seemingly) distracted single dad to get a penguin. The revelation that they’re not so dissimilar after all is about as sweet as it gets. Though very much a boy-and-his-pet story, it’s just as much about two gentlemen who appear to be orbiting entirely different planets.

The book’s humor is built on gentle misunderstandings between father and son (when Elliot asks for a penguin, his father assumes he means a stuffed one from the aquarium gift shop). Buzzeo (the Adventure Annie books) gives Elliot courtly manners (“Thank you for inviting me” is his response to his father’s suggestion they visit the aquarium) and a quick wit. Elliot fixes up a bedroom ice rink with the air conditioner and hose, puts Magellan to bed in the freezer, and takes him swimming in the bathtub. Small’s (Elsie’s Bird) ink-and-watercolor drawings are as urbane as Elliot’s bow tie, and he creates a magnificent mansion for Elliot and his father. He’s also pretty absentminded, so when Elliot-a quiet, rosy-cheeked boy who prefers tuxedos-brings home a Magellanic penguin, he doesn’t notice. Elliot’s father wears a dorky plaid suit and works as some sort of naturalist.

One cool friend book