With an ensemble cast straight from a box of Animal Crackers, this is a delightful tale of ambition, morality, and self-discovery drawn in a decidedly beautiful fashion reminiscent of Richard Scary and Lewis Trondheim, yet utterly unique. Renier's fully-realized and compellingly adventurous narrative is at once both achingly naive and profoundly worldly. A remarkable debut, this tightly crafted novella is the real deal, and will charm your socks off.
“In this graphic novel about the young animal characters who live in the Town, Turnip the elephant is using the summer to find his artistic voice through sculpture, his friend Stucky the dog is building a submarine, and Ana the rabbit is working on the town's underground newspaper. Their stories all wind around the town's deep, dark secret about the monster that lives in the pond. Kids who enjoyed novels such as Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy and Roald Dahl's Matilda will find a similar sense of adventure here. The characters seem like real children, wholesome without being too sweet, and Renier's art is light and fun, a sort of Babar meets underground comix. Readers older and younger than the target audience will enjoy this, too.” — Tina Coleman, Booklist
“Brilliant! Aaron Renier has created a playfully mysterious universe, complete with its own dreamlike logic. It's a delightfully inventive treasure.” — Dav Pilkey, author of Captain Underpants
Aaron Renier is the author of three graphic novels for younger readers; Spiral-Bound, Walker Bean and Walker Bean and the Knights of the Waxing Moon. He is the recipient of the Eisner award in 2006 for talent deserving of wider recognition, and was an inaugural resident for the Sendak Fellowship in 2010. He teaches drawing and comics at universities in Chicago.
144 page black and white paperback with color covers
Top Shelf, 2005
