180 - One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo - children's book review

One Cool Friend.jpg

One Cool Friend was written by Toni Buzzeo and illustrated by David Small. It was published by Dial Books for Young Readers in 2012.

Elliot is a “proper” boy and goes to the aquarium with his father one day. Elliot wants a penguin and his father gives him $20 to buy one thinking that he’ll get a plush penguin. Elliot lives with the penguin and have fun until his father discovers that...

I looked up the website www.penguinOnIce.com and it’s for sale for some ridiculous amount of money. I have no idea what kind of a sick joke this is but the author should get his brain checked for adding something stupid like this in a picture book (Elliot learns this web address at the library).

Besides that, this book is very well done. The illustrator seems to be a master of caricatures.... he exaggerates everything very well and you can see that the ink from his pen flows very naturally. Some of the drawings in the aquarium are a delight to look at since he forms a bizarre looking interior with quick lines of a blue colored pencil. The background are all well done with a lot of white space...

The story is a strange one... I didn’t really get the Captain Cook reference and I seriously doubt any children would be able to get it too.

One Cool Friend is a nice fantasy on the idea of owning a wild pet... I’m sure most kids get these crazy ideas when they visit aquariums or zoos and it’s nice to have a book that allow children to imagine that fantasy.

© Quigley Mark 2013