About the Author

MINI GREY is the creator of the Boston Globe-Horn Book award-winning picture book Traction Man Is Here! as well as Traction Man Meets TurboDog and Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey. Collectively, the three Traction Man books have received 15 starred reviews. Her brilliant, quirky humor can also be seen in Three by the Sea, The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon, and Ginger Bear.

Reviews

Starred Review, School Library Journal, June 2013:
"Wonderfully offbeat." Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, March 25, 2013:
"Grey plumbs the pathos and humor of carelessly treated playthings. Her double narratives hint at toys' secret lives and the desire, after adventuring, to feel safe--impulses children will easily recognize in themselves."

K-Gr 2-In this wonderfully offbeat story-within-a-story, a little boy forgets his toys in the garden. Afraid of spending the night outside, the toys ask WonderDoll, leader of the bunch, to tell them a tale as a distraction. WonderDoll spins an exciting yarn about the Hoctopize, an alien who collects abandoned toys aboard his ship while searching for his own lost Cuddles. When the alien beams up WonderDoll and company, captivating adventures commence. The toys help the Hoctopize realize that his captives should be returned home and throw him a party to cheer him up, which lasts until dawn. Clever layouts of the cartoonish but highly expressive illustrations divide the action of WonderDoll's story from the toys' reactions. While WonderDoll's narrative occupies the larger part of the spreads, the toys' hilarious speech-balloon commentary is relegated to a smaller sidebar. This picture book is for the of Grey's previous quirky stories or other animate toy adventures such as the longer Emily Jenkins's Toys Go Out (Random, 2006) or Michael Rosen's Red Ted and the Lost Things (Candlewick, 2009).-Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova, formerly at Chappaqua Library, NY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.