GUARDIAN OF THE GROCERIES

A little boy learns the power of his imagination in this picture book.

Freckled, red-haired Henry doesn’t agree when his mom tells him, “It’s okay to be bored sometimes.” Her idea of adventure is...a trip to the grocery store. There, she leaves Henry to guard the cart while she tracks down items. With a metal colander to serve as helmet, Captain Henry imagines that his cart is a spaceship. He pilots it daringly around the aisles, eliminating enemies like Breakfastus Maximus—“a villain made of giant, family-sized cereal boxes!” or the dreaded Broccolisaurus, which he defeats utterly at the dinner table. At bedtime, Henry realizes his mother was right: “Anything can be an adventure if you just use your imagination.” In his second book for children, Albanese entertainingly helps encourage kids to find opportunity for imagination in the midst of tedium. Henry’s vivid battles are humorous and exciting and make great use of the grocery-store setting for maximum fun. Kirkland, illustrating her first children’s book, provides comiclike pictures that resemble children’s drawings and energetically convey the fun of Henry’s adventures.

An appealingly comic approach to helping kids transform life’s mundane moments.