PENPALS FOREVER

Here’s a little-known fact: Elephants and mice look exactly alike.

Annabel and Freddy are both gray, and they both have big ears and big noses, so they decide instantly to become pen pals even though—because mice are smaller than elephants—Freddy can stand comfortably inside the envelope from one of Annabel’s letters and Annabel must use a microscope to read Freddy’s. The artwork doesn’t entirely support the belief that they look identical. But none of the characters in this picture book looks like any real animal. Freddy, with his tall, stylized ears, is shaped like a pair of scissors. Another mouse has a bowl-shaped head and freckles, making it look rather like a colander. Distractingly, almost every corner of every page is crammed with detail, including many commercial products put to use as mouse furniture. The layout is so haphazard that readers may have no idea where to look. Fortunately, the story is simple enough that it sometimes resembles a fable, like a reverse “Town Mouse, Country Mouse”: Annabel and Freddy visit each other’s neighborhoods (in South Africa and the U.K., respectively) and make them better. Annabel, for example, uses her trunk to vacuum up a nasty gang of rodents and send them flying. The pictures are less traditional. Some characters appear to have both eyes on the same side of their face. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-16.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 87.6% of actual size.)

The befuddling imagery will appeal mostly to aspiring cubists.