The Selfish Sister

The titular sister of this second subversive picture book from Sedaris (Pretty Ugly) is wildly covetous—she’s even portrayed with skin that’s an envious green. “She took my bed, my towel, my chair,// my stuffed giraffe, my threadbare hare,” the sibling narrator laments, but the sister’s behaviors extend far beyond nabbing individual effects. Rigid rhyming lines describe a character who claims also grandfather Sidney, “our brother’s kidney,” and “the flag that means LGBT!” When the protagonist finally gets what seems like her best life, end pages lower the boom, offering not a whiff of redemption: “There’s nothing sister doesn’t own.// Except for friends. She’s all alone.” Staake (Lost) brings anarchic Ren & Stimpy–like energy to the proceedings via digitally colored pencil and ink drawings that give the book a raw, dark-carnival giddiness. Though the unrelenting catalog of seized goods eventually wears thin, the illustrations supply a pressure-relief valve, giving readers permission to acknowledge what they know in their bones: siblings can be absolutely awful. Characters are depicted with various skin tones, many fanciful. Ages 7–10. Author’s agent: Cristina Concepcion, Don Congdon Assoc. Illustrator’s agent: Gillian MacKenzie. Gillian MacKenzie Agency. (Mar.)