CIRCUS CARNIVORE
by Mark Svendsen & illustrated by Ben Redlich
Overproduced to the point of semi-legibility, this Australian import folds mannered verses laced with nonsense words into hyper-complicated paint/collage scenes featuring weirdly distorted figures and zillions of clipped-out words and phrases in English and German. Fulminating against the parental “Dullundrears” who tell her to pipe down, Katie introduces readers to Tubswort, Niddy-no-not, Noolman and others who run the “noise-a-matron” in her head—and who, being laid off by their “drooblish” foreman, “his voice most ultra-gloomal,” assume new identities as performers in the titular, intracranial circus. Fans of jabberwockish rhymes might stay the course, but most readers will get lost. (Picture book. 8-10)