THE LEGEND OF IRON PURL

Nyeu’s tale concerns a grandmother whose superpower is knitting.

“Nobody could spin a yarn like Granny Fuzz,” relays the omniscient narrator as the village “children” (an assortment of bunnies, foxes, and other creatures) descend underground into the white, long-nosed mammal’s cottage. While she works the spinning wheel and clicks away, Grandma describes the exploits of Iron Purl and her adversary, Bandit Bob, who can be spotted at the scene of every problem. When bats were eating all the berries in the bushes, the legendary knitter wrapped them in woolen cocoons, directing the villains to mitigate the destruction by planting a garden. When Bob’s sparkler set the fairground on fire, wet balls of yarn extinguished the flame, and the heroine swung in on a string to rescue a falling bunny. Busy silk-screened compositions are rendered in a controlled palette of greens, turquoise, mustard, and pinks. Some are fanciful and lively; variation is achieved with a combination of double-page spreads, panels, and targeted speech bubbles. The logic and solutions are a bit forced, however, as when Purl knits contraptions out of lace to safeguard pies that Bob has been stealing or when, after Bob steals socks, she suggests using pompoms to pair mismatched sets. Bob’s backstory—he was lonely and made trouble to gain attention—feels equally manufactured and heavy-handed. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Obvious messages and contrived situations make knitters and grandmas the primary audience.