AMAZING GRAPES

A traumatized family heals most of its cracks as it bumbles from Meanyopolis to Truphoria.

It’s been more than six decades since Feiffer illustrated Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, but he’s still sending young people into metaphorical fantasy realms to meet quirky residents and bumble along on personal quests toward self-actualization. Here, the horrifying prospect of getting a new dad, home, and siblings propels quarrelsome Pearlie and contrary little brother Curly into the Lost Dimension of Ephemera. They’re followed by older sister Shirley with her hunky but dimwitted fiance, Earl, and finally their indecisive mom, who sings the titular song (“I cried, I sighed, / alone, I’d moan, / ’twas grapes / that set me free”). Mommy, in a protracted search for her true identity, becomes the real protagonist. Or at least, by the end, she sends her children on their ways and evinces the most change among the characters. Accompanied by a dog/cat named Kelly and a wildly mutable monster representing doubt (or something like it), various members of the clan encounter locals, from the Feary (“rhymes with scary”) Queen to an attacking troupe of dapper, dancing, deadly Elegantics. The story culminates in a wedding and a last reprise of the theme song. In the art dialogue balloons, bright colors and scribbly lines feature more prominently than the human figures, who are posed with balletic grace. Main characters present white.

Imaginative and dazzlingly theatrical at the end, though on the long and wandering side.