SHERLOCK BONES AND THE SEA-CREATURE FEATURE

Bird skeleton by day, sleuth by night, Sherlock Bones investigates rumors of a monster haunting a new museum exhibit.

Overheard remarks from departing schoolchildren about an elusive swamp monster and a missing octopus in the new wing prompt the skeletal tawny frogmouth, a carnivorous Australian bird first met in Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery (2020), to hop off its display rack again and round up Watts, a taxidermic parrot and literally silent partner, and Grace, a scatterbrained, chocoholic, live racoon. Taking care not to alert the guard (guess how that goes), the bumbling gumshoes hie off to an exhibit that features live flora and fauna—notably a restless algae octopus fond of camouflaging itself and creeping out of its tank—plus numerous legible exhibit labels to fill readers in on diverse habitats, cryptids of the world, and species endangered or otherwise. Interspersed between these informative signs with flights of puns and jokes, Treml loads her big cartoon panels with clues and comical mishaps on the way to a neat wrap-up that sees the “monster,” a rare (and thoroughly cute) pygmy sloth that had stowed away in the exhibit’s mangroves, sent back to its Panamanian home and that bored octopus settling down, mesmerized by a Rubik’s cube. Museum staff and visitors are ethnically diverse.

The lights may go out, but the learning never stops—nor do the hijinks and hilarity.