Garbage Gulls

Debut creators Plourde and Fassler summon the feel of summer’s languor as they take readers to a car, seemingly abandoned and open to the air, parked in a semideserted strip-mall parking lot near a hotel called The Sea. Lolling and blowing bubbles in the back seat are two pale-skinned kids feeling summer’s heat (“We are microwave molten goo”). Though “we know all corners of The Sea.../ we’ve never been to the beach,” and for entertainment, they scatter French fries splattered with ketchup and sauce around the vehicle and watch a “tangle” of gulls appear (“One thousand, TWO THOUSAND wings!”). The cloudless sky turns to psychedelic hues as the kids imagine the blue-winged birds hoisting the car over the strip mall signage (“We are weightless./ We are Deals! Deals! Deals!”) to the ocean, where the occupants splash with abandon. Both the language and the expressively textured drawings, rendered in digitally finished pencil, crayon, and graphite, strive for poetic heights. Though the result is occasionally more perplexing than transportive, it’s a wild and wonderful seasonal tribute to the way that children, left to their own devices during a long summer’s day, can be immensely creative. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Jen Newens, Martin Literary. (June)