All Through My Town

February 4, 2013
A rabbit toddler surveys the bustle and occasional comic chaos of his beloved town from the vantage point of a buggy being pushed by his mother. Timmers’s (The Magical Life of Mr. Renny) work possesses the exaggerated goofiness and hipster-retro edge of contemporary animation, and he revels in riffing on Reidy’s (Too Princessy!) simple, cataloguelike rhymes (“Shopping, sacking,/ sorting, stacking—/ rows so nice and neat./ School bells ringing./ Reading, singing,/ friends to meet and greet”). The bright, saturated acrylic environments are densely and vibrantly populated with animal characters in an expansive variety of roles (a guitar-playing gorilla teacher, an ursine tourist in a Hawaiian shirt, a crocodile short-order cook flipping flapjacks); their energy, both potential and unleashed, and their eager, saucerlike eyes convey a sense of carpe diem bordering on manic. With spreads jam-packed with detail and event—as the action moves from home to bustling sidewalks, past traffic jams and into the hospital (for a visit) and the library—it’s an undeniable feast for the eyes. Up to age 5. Author’s agent: Erin Murphy, Erin Murphy Literary Agency.