SUNNY BOY!

A century in the keeping of one sedate owner after another leaves a small tortoise utterly unprepared for life with a reckless daredevil. In a captivating memoir, Sunny Boy fondly recalls quiet years with a gardener, a stamp collector and a Latin scholar—followed by a decidedly upsetting stint with Biff, an enthusiast who embarks on a string of failed stunts, then resolves to take a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel with, unfortunately, his trusty tortoise by his side. Telling the tale in an evocatively deliberate voice—“My world tipped. Now, instead of basking in the bright sunlight, I bounced and jostled about in Biff’s dank sidecar”—that brings out his character with the same clarity that the small, anxious-looking figure, cast into various perilous situations in Wilsdorf’s exuberantly drawn cartoons, does, Sunny Boy makes an engaging narrator indeed—particularly after the Niagara triumph actually leaves him with a taste for adventure, so long as it’s only occasional. Loosely based on a true episode that didn’t have such a happy ending (only the tortoise survived), this will delight both active and armchair daredevils. (afterword) (Picture book. 7-9)