Gravity Is Bringing Me Down

From the moment she tumbles out of bed, young Leda, portrayed with light brown skin, places the blame for her off-kilter day with the biggest force of them all: “Gravity was in a bad mood. Again.” This Mercury-retrograde-like occurrence means that nothing goes right in Leda’s orbit—a series of slips, spills, and trips at home lead to more of the same at school. Smartly choreographed mixed-media cartoons use realism to depict a comic cascade of woe, including a major fail in the class pyramid-building contest and a bibliographic mess caused by a runaway library cart. Even when a lesson reveals gravity’s value (“Without the sun’s gravity, our solar system would fly apart”), the force seems intent on getting Leda down. But Mom knows how to get things back in sync: a cosmic reboot at the local children’s museum’s interactive space exhibit. In this funny, fresh take on a day gone wrong, Van Draanen (Mr. Whiskers and the Shenanigan Sisters) and Li (Hello, Opportunity) are sympathetic to their protagonist’s travails, presenting readers with the opportunity to see in resilient Leda—and themselves—that whatever gravity may throw down, they’ll rise above it. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown. Illustrator’s agent: Caryn Wiseman, Andrea Brown Literary. (Jan.)