The Flying Beaver Brothers and the Fishy Business

March 1, 2012

K-Gr 3-Ace and Bub are distinguishable from one another only by their shorts; they both have a yen for adventure and a tendency to get caught up in major animal kingdom conspiracies. Their primary nemesis is Bruce, a larger beaver with a commensurate ego, but they also end up battling the evil plans of penguins and mackerel. The art is simplistic, using a single spot color to add some variety to the background and to highlight the narrow line work. The visual design limits the expressions of the characters to a precious few primitive reactions. Despite this, the books are fun reads, exhibiting a glib sense of the absurd as well as solid comic timing. Something is always happening, a wonderfully terrible pun is being set up, or someone will regularly make an aside to readers. Much of the charm of the books comes from the particularly offbeat humor-Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2013
Beaver brothers Ace and Bub live on Beaver Island, and in these first adventures they step up to save their home from evil resort-building penguins and a mackerel-run factory producing Fish Stix (toys). Humor and wordplay in the speech-bubble text will charm young graphic-novel lovers; comics-style illustrations--with spare lines, digital coloring, and lots of energy--maintain the action.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)