CHIRRI & CHIRRA, UNDERGROUND

In this Japanese import, the winsome, bike-riding twins from Chirri & Chirra in the Tall Grass (2017) are back for another gently surreal adventure.

“Dring-dring, dring-dring!” Upon hearing mysterious noises from the cellar, Chirri and Chirra hop on their bikes and pedal into a hole they find dug into one of its walls. They come across “an underground peanut farm” worked entirely by industrious moles, who harvest, shell, roast, and package the legumes. After enjoying “two cones of peanut soft-serve, warm and fresh as can be,” Chirri and Chirra are off again, stopping in “an underground flower garden” tended by mayflies and pedaling beneath a vegetable garden—parsnips, a turnip, leeks, carrots, and beets can be seen in cross-section—before finding their quarry: three badger children who took a wrong turn into their cellar and their parents. The badgers lead them to an underground lake for a boat ride before offering them a meal of “fried root vegetables” and “blue soup” and finally digging them a new tunnel up into the pink dawn. Doi employs her trademark approach, soft colored pencils on textured paper giving the illustrations the cozy appearance of lithographs, a mood furthered by the book’s diminutive trim. The twins are identical, with black pageboys, dot eyes, pudgy, rosy cheeks, and Mona Lisa smiles; their delight in the wonders they encounter is pure, unquestioning, and totally infectious.

Another charmer.