cover image Doug-Dennis and the Flyaway Fib

Doug-Dennis and the Flyaway Fib

Darren Farrell, . . Dial, $16.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8037-3437-1

Sharp-edged irony and wacky cartoon visuals provide newcomer Farrell's moral tale with some serious wattage. Doug-Dennis, a rather vacant-looking sheep with stick legs and red basketball sneakers, can't bring himself to confess that he's eaten his friend Ben-Bobby's popcorn. After he tells a fib (“Hmm, maybe it was monsters. Yeah, that's it, monsters!!”), he quickly gets “carried away”—quite literally—by the very speech balloons that contain his fibs. To the amazement of onlookers below, he floats across the continents on his own hot air before arriving in a sort of fibbers' purgatory in outer space. Surrounded by hardcore fibbers (“This limited time offer is the deal of the century!!!” announces a man with five o'clock shadow and a briefcase), Doug-Dennis is so lonely and unsettled that he finds it in himself to confess, which allows him to descend to earth and make up with Ben-Bobby. Despite the antifib message, the fibs are where all the entertainment is (“I invented the inter-web,” declares a spider), and the ethically unsteady Doug-Dennis has plenty of Homer Simpson–like appeal. Ages 5–8. (Mar.)