LOUIS AND THE DODO

A poster child for outsiders everywhere takes flight—literally and figuratively—in this dreamy, oddball episode. “Those kids don’t want to play with me,” Louis tells his parents. “I’m not like them.” Very true: In Nguyen’s polished, surreal illustrations, Louis dresses in a birdlike, red-and-turquoise superhero outfit, and hangs out in trees to keep songbirds safe from cats. Learning that a local circus is mistreating a dodo chick, Louis and his feathered friends fly to the rescue and thence to a secret island bird refuge that, to his delight, magically connects to the back of his bedroom closet. Sporting yellow goggles beneath a big bird’s-head cap, Louis cuts a small but intrepid figure among his brightly colored allies, particularly when facing a gang of scary clowns. Young readers will pull for him, and, who knows, may regard their less conventional peers with more tolerance afterwards. (Picture book. 7-9)