FICTION

Buddy and Earl Go Exploring

by Maureen FERGUS
illus. by Carey Sookocheff. 32p. Groundwood. Mar. 2016. Tr $16.95. ISBN 9781554987146.
COPY ISBN
PreS-Gr 2—In this delightful follow-up to Buddy and Earl (Groundwood, 2015), the trouble-making duo embark on another escapade. After their owners retire for the night, Earl the adventurous hedgehog escapes from his cage and invites Buddy the loyal dog to join him on a wild romp around the kitchen. Transformed by Earl's hyperactive imagination, the garbage bin becomes a mountain, Buddy's water bowl turns into a glacial lake, and a hairbrush stuck in a purse appears as a lady hedgehog trapped by a monster. Though at times skeptical regarding Earl's outrageous claims, Buddy nevertheless follows his friend's lead, exploring mountains and fighting monsters…and inadvertently destroying the kitchen in the process. A final, wordless spread shows Earl and Buddy snoozing peacefully amid utter chaos, their owner's slippered foot about to enter the kitchen. Sookocheff's acrylic and gouache illustrations in subdued gray, lavender, blue, and beige tones perfectly capture the quiet feel of a nighttime kitchen. Her cartoonish portrayal of Buddy and Earl is both amusing and expressive, wonderfully complementing Fergus's humorous prose.
VERDICT A neat story with enough hilarious high jinks to make young readers giggle out loud and look forward to more Buddy and Earl adventures.
Reviewed by Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova, formerly at Chappaqua Library, NY
Buddy (dog) and Earl (hedgehog) return for a nocturnal adventure. Without leaving the kitchen, the two take a dip in a "silvery lake" and rescue a "lovely lady hedgehog" from a "monster." The comic tension between the real and the imagined is just as evident here as in Buddy and Earl. Again, Sookocheff wrings an astounding amount of personality out of her simple, cartoony illustrations.
Friends Buddy (a dog) and Earl (a hedgehog) return in a second adventure (Buddy and Earl, rev. 9/15) -- this time, a nocturnal one. And though they take a dip in a "silvery lake" and rescue a "lovely lady hedgehog" from a "monster," they never leave the kitchen. (Though they do leave it a huge mess.) The comic tension between the real and the imagined, between Buddy's sweet naivete and Earl's cleverness, and between the human and animal universes is just as evident here as in the first book. And again, Sookocheff wrings an astounding amount of expression and personality out of her simple, cartoony, almost monochromatic (browns, blues, purples, and grays) gouache and digital illustrations. The story winds down as the two friends decide they've done enough exploring for the night and go to sleep. But one more page-turn, leading to a wordless last page that reveals the extent of the accidental destruction (and hints at the impending early-morning arrival of the "hideous ogre" with the glasses and the ugly blue housecoat, a.k.a. Dad), will wake readers right up. martha v. parravano
 , Feb 01, 2016

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