FINISHED:

Weston, Robert Paul. (2013). The creature department. New York: Razorbill/Penguin.

[Elliot and Leslie are invited by Elliot’s eccentric Uncle Archie to take a tour of the much guarded headquarters of DENKi-3000, an electronics company responsible for such life-changing products as the telelectric pencil and wireless breathmints.  What the two discover is that the research and development department is actually staffed with an odd assortment of dim sum-gobbling creatures who are tasked, along with help from Elliot and Leslie, with coming up with an invention that will stave off a looming hostile takeover by Quazicom, a ruthless capital investment firm.  Each chapter is headed by a full-page, black and white illustration, with other artwork scattered throughout, courtesy of London-based visual effects house Framestore (though that fact is, oddly, never explicitly stated anywhere in/on the book), and though they do help to give a visual for the myriad of creatures, their cartoony, obviously digital style renders them generic.  In addition, a fascinating premise involving adding “essences” of intangible concepts to inventions to imbue them with special properties is wasted, only getting a brief mention, and some of the writing comes off as though it’s been ripped from a Hollywood screenplay.  An average offering with a fun premise that comes up a bit short.]


STARTED:
Marcus, Leonard S. (2013). Randolph Caldecott: The man who could not stop drawing. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

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