Hearts (Toon Books Level 1)

K-Gr 3--This comic, with its limited vocabulary for emergent readers, has a complex, mystical story line, which will also appeal to older children. Penelope, a fox with a broken heart, pursues that heart through water and air. Encountering cat guards at a palace, she leaps on a black horse with a red mane, retrieves her heart, and loses it as a spear carries it away. Then the fox is in a city, sobbing on a park bench before catching a double-decker red bus. A chicken, who has danced on the bus roof, takes her to the garden of lost things, where they find the heart but encounter a monster. Penelope sacrifices her heart to save her new friend. Cut-paper illustrations feature flat colors and clean lines. The visual narrative flows through large and small panels, where speech bubbles and sound effects are used sparingly but to great effect. For instance, "BUM BA DUM...BUM BA DUM" appears in two crescents, emphasizing the heart shape of the palace while also mimicking a beating heart. Youngsters will return to this tale of old and new friendship and loss, finding in Penelope's experiences something that speaks to their own hearts. An author's note discusses the story's origin, while endpapers addressed to parents and teachers give tips for reading comics with kids. An unusual and unique choice for all libraries.--Mary Jean Smith, formerly at Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN