Dory Fantasmagory (Dory Fantasmagory #1)

Childlike drawings, often embellished with hand-lettered narrative or speech bubbles, of round-headed humans, Sendak-ian monsters and a snaggle-toothed witch add to the humor. Charming, funny and true to life. 

Dory's nickname, "Rascal," is an immediate tip-off to the six-year-old's personality, but there's more to Dory than just being a spitfire. To combat her older siblings' refusal to play with her because she's a "baby," Dory conjures up Mary, a monster friend who appreciates her incessant questions, like "Why do we have armpits?" and "What is the opposite of sandwich?" Dory's pestering leads Luke and Violet to tell her that 507-year-old Mrs. Gobble Gracker, "who robs baby girls," is looking for her. This sets Dory's imagination spinning, leading to the appearance of the vampiric Mrs. Gobble Gracker and the gnomelike Mr. Nuggy, who introduces himself as her fairy godmother. Reality and fantasy combine hilariously in a story that, at heart, is about a girl who wants little more than to spend time with her brother and sister. Hanlon's (Ralph Tells a Story) loosely scrawled illustrations, speech balloons, and hand-lettering are an enormous part of the story's humor, channeling Dory's energy and emotions as emphatically as the narration. Time spent with Dory is time well spent. Ages 6-8. Agent: Ann Tobias, A Literary Agency for Children's Books. (Oct.)

Gr 1-3--Six-year-old Dory, known as Rascal to her family, wants more than anything to be included in her older siblings's fun, but her endless questions and make-believe monsters drive them crazy. When Violet and Luke tell Dory a bedtime story about the evil Mrs. Gobble Grackle, who steals baby girls, they unintentionally feed her already overactive imagination. Dory and her imaginary friend, Mary (who resembles Maurice Sendak's Max), are always on the lookout for monsters, and they thwart Mrs. Gobble Grackle's attempts to kidnap her with banana peels and sleep-inducing darts. When Dory pretends to be the dog her brother has always wanted, she convinces Mrs. G that she isn't the baby to kidnap and sabotages a trip to the doctor's office. Hanlon effectively uses many childlike pencil drawings and word balloons interspersed with a good mix of short and long sentences in brief, episodic chapters full of Dory's hilarious adventures. New vocabulary words are used in context within familiar settings and situations for the audience, creating a successful transitional book for new readers ready for longer stories. Dory ultimately finds a way to prove her bravery to her brother and sister, and readers will laugh at her entertaining antics.--Kristine M. Casper, Huntington Public Library, NY

Praise for Dory Fantasmagory

A Golden Kite Honor Book for Fiction
ALA/ALSC/YALSA 2015 Notable Children's Book
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2014
A Kirkus Best Book of 2014
One of Parent's Magazine's "10 Best Children's Books" of 2014
An ALSC 2015 Summer Reading List pick