PINKY DINKY DOO

The irrepressible young storyteller introduced in Pinky Dinky Doo: Where Are My Shoes? (2004) returns with another wildly improbably yarn, this one featuring a truly epic Bad Hair Day. Finding her little brother Tyler cowering under a pile of laundry, Pinky charges him up for his first day of first grade with an account of how she, her friends Nicholas Biscuit and Daffinee Toilette, and even her teacher Ms. Mazanga and Principal Dipthong [sic] found a way to make the best of things one Class Picture Day despite ’dos that ranged from cat-fight tangled to downright quadrilateral. As before, Jinkins slips in some painless pedagogy—mostly such useful new vocabulary as “apprehensive” and “mph”—and illustrates this schoolroom saga with childlike cartoons mixed with or superimposed on color photos. Will this outing too have young readers rolling in the aisles? As Pinky would (does) say, “Yesserooni Positooni!” (Easy reader. 6-8)