MARVELTOWN

Beginning with the exhilarating sky-skiing invented by the children of Marveltown, this picture book will thrill budding science-fiction enthusiasts. Marveltown is filled with machines so cool they would make Willy Wonka tingle. Every Saturday the children are given access to the Invent-o-Drome and are free to let their imaginations soar. There’s the Rocket Chair that gets riders to school in six seconds. There’s the Homework Grinder, a metal dog that will eat your homework for a nickel. Then there’s the ever useful bedroom hologram that can fool parents into thinking the room is spotless. Meanwhile, the Skyway Project, an airborne road, is under construction by the electrohydraulic robots. These guys are giant mechanical contraptions who also do lifting, paving and coffee-fetching, until a short causes them to run amuck. Good old kid power prevails: They and their marvelous doohickeys take down the robots. The fantastical gouache paintings awe the eye with taffy colors, depicting a world where Star Wars meets the Jetsons, a place where if you can imagine it, you can make it happen. (Picture book. 4-7)