February 15, 2018
Being swallowed by a lion works watershed changes on young Penny's character.Plainly cast as a riff on Maurice Sendak's Pierre (1962) but lacking its progenitor's internal logic (not to mention its narrative lilt), the episode introduces Penny as a tidy, quiet child who draws "boring...but nice" pictures of flowers, lets other kids steal her lunch, and always does as she's told. One day a lion appears on the playground and gulps her down. Shortly thereafter she punches her way out and declares that she will not let herself be eaten again--a resolution that somehow translates into sweeping behavioral changes: "So Penny now draws whatever she wants, maybe dragons or a monster named Ryan... // And at lunchtime she goes to the front of the line, riding on the back of a lion." In the large-format cartoon illustrations Fairgray surrounds his self-possessed, purple-haired white protagonist with wildly caricatured schoolmates and teachers displaying a broad range of clothes, body types, and variations in skin tone. The smiling lion looks more like a boulevardier than a predator, leaning on the playground fence and sporting a carefully coiffured mane and jagged rows of oddly tiny teeth. "So let this be a lesson, children, being good and nice is fine, / but don't be afraid to break rules or test limits from time to time." Uh, right.Stylish the art may be, but it's wasted on this ham-fisted moral tale. (Picture book. 6-8)
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