Jane & Mizmow

In his first solo outing, illustrator Armstrong (Rhino, Rhino, Sweet Potato) offers a charmingly illustrated story, full of physical comedy, about a girl’s bumpy friendship with a monster. Jane is waifish and shaggy-haired, while Mizmow is a pudgy, furry owl-like creature with rabbit ears. When they first meet, after Jane shakes Mizmow out of a woolen cap, she loves him immediately (a cartoon heart appears above her delighted face), though Mizmow unexpectedly licks her, gobbles her up, then spits her out. After this opening interlude, which unfolds in wordless panels like a cartoon storyboard, Armstrong introduces some perfunctory and generally unnecessary text to describe the duo’s episodic misadventures, which culminate in a big fight (“Mizmow is mad. Jane is more mad”). Mizmow is mischievous—much of the book’s humor revolves around his heft and large appetite for red autumn leaves and books—with Jane playing straight man (and getting catapulted through the air on more than one occasion). It’s a humorous account of an unlikely friendship, but the bland prose saps some of its magic. Ages 3–5. (Oct.)