The Fantastic 5 & 10¢ Store: A Rebus Adventure
After a new store mysteriously appears in town, young Benny Penny investigates the enchanted inventory of flying toasters and the surreal goings-on: The cup said to the saucer, ‘You / Are quite a dish, my dear!’ / The calendar jumped off the wall / Because it was leap year. The thin plot and silly rhymes provide framework for what seems to be the book’s main attraction: a rebus-style text that combines words and pictures. The puzzles are creative (twice is created from the combination of TW and a picture of an ice cube); literal (a chicken picture signifies chicken); and occasionally unclear (is that an alligator or a crocodile?). Fortunately, a full key to the text appears at the back. The computer-manipulated style of Fisher’s mixed-media artwork jars against the Americana setting, and while Lewis makes a good stab at the nonsensical, he is no Edward Lear. The ending will please kids: with Benny’s marketing moxie, customers are soon flooding in to purchase the magical merchandise. Grades 1-2. --Andrew Medlar