Synopsis
When a young child takes his favorite toy along to the park, the market, the lake, and for a car ride, he mistakenly leaves the toy behind.
Publishers Weekly
Plaidypus, a homemade stuffed toy fashioned from Grandpa's old plaid shirt, has a problem: his pigtailed owner can't seem to stop losing him. "I'm sorry, Plaidypus. I'll never, ever, ever, ever lose you again," the girl swears after a fisherman extracts the forgotten, sodden toy from a lake (the string of "evers" in her promise gets longer with each episode of carelessness). "Plaidypus lost./ Plaidypus found," chimes the book's knowing refrain, "This story goes around and around." Stevens and Crummel, sisters whose past collaborations include And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon, have fun with the book's oversize format and the visual translation of its telegraphic, rhyming text. The large type, which looks almost like children's printing, shifts from black to a bright color to underscore an emotion or plot point-for example, when the girl accidentally ejects Plaidypus from the car window, her "Uh-oh" pops out in red. Set against crisp white space, Stevens's watercolors capture the heroine's personality: her plump, chipper willfulness, the energy she expends when pushing a shopping cart, the way her entire body droops when she realizes the toy has once again gone missing. Plaidypus himself, the size of a toddler (nearly as large as his owner) and garbed in a succession of hats, scuba gear, etc., is a mute scene-stealer. Any child who has claimed to be joined at the hip to a beloved toy will get a jolt of recognition. Ages 4-8. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.