Brobarians

PreS-Gr 1—In this tongue-in-cheek tale of two warriors, brothers Iggy and Otto find themselves at odds over a broken cookie jar. Endpapers provide a childlike, crayon-scrawled map of the brothers' backyard and the kingdom they've imagined within it. Iggy quickly conquers magical beasts (the family dog) and colossal monsters (the patio barbecue), and eventually he seizes Otto's army (of toy soldiers). When Otto the Big Brobarian hatches a plan to capture Iggy's most prized possession (his bottle), a clash of two titans ensues, and a summoning echoes across the kingdom: Mamabarian. The warriors drop their weapons and march straight to the tub. Ward's plot cleverly celebrates the spirit of imaginative toddlers, and her cartoonlike cut-paper collage, pencil, and crayon illustrations playfully match the humor of the tale.