VIOLET AND VICTOR WRITE THE BEST-EVER BOOKWORM BOOK

Twins collaborate in writing an original story about a “book-eating monster.”

When bossy Violet Small decides to ”write the best-ever book in the whole entire world,” she cajoles her twin brother, Victor, into helping. Far more interested in his pet worms, Victor suggests their hero should be a strong, brave worm, which Violet promptly changes to a strong, brave girl named Violet. Overhearing the school librarian complain that pages are missing from a book, Victor creates a gripping plot starring their heroine, who “creeps by comic books,” “slips through stories,” “eyeballs encyclopedias,” “peers in pages” and “flies through fairy tales” in her quest to save the library from a terrible book-eating monster. The twins’ editorializing is tracked from page to page, with Violet speaking in purple type and Victor in orange, while their versions of the story appear in childlike print in lavender and orange notebook-paper text boxes. Murguia comically presents the twins in graphite pencil sketches and, in “homage to the printed page,” combines Photoshopped multimedia images from books, maps, library cards and origami sculptures to create fantastical backgrounds for their fictional hunt for the not-so-terrible book-eating monster.

Clever fare for aspiring bookworms (especially siblings).