Trixie and Jinx
PreS-Gr 1–Koontz follows up I, Trixie Who Is Dog (Putnam, 2009) with an equally unimpressive sequel unlikely to appeal to anyone but die-hard fans. The fun-loving canine is upset because her best friend, Jinx, is going on vacation. Who will she play with? None of the neighborhood animals are good friends for a dog, so finally she invents an imaginary one. Then Jinx comes home, and Koontz slams readers over the head with the importance of friendship. Cleland's watercolor and pen-and-ink illustrations are appealing enough, if overly cute. She mixes full-bleed spreads and single pages with spot art to add interest and movement. Trixie almost always looks as if she is having fun, and the jagged edges and splashy watercolor washes match her frenetic energy and slapdash personality. The writing, however, leaves much to be desired. The story meanders, and the text, which hardly ever scans, mixes supposedly doglike poor grammar with proper usage and forces in meaningless words for rhymes, despite the fact that the rhyme scheme is unreliable at best, and completely disappears in places. While small children will sympathize with the best-friend-on-vacation scenario, the didactic ending is beyond doggerel. On the whole, an entirely disappointing offering.–Amy Lilien-Harper, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CTα(c) Copyright 2010.  Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.  No redistribution permitted.