Puzzled by Pink

Izzy is a budding goth who looks like a milder version of Charles Addams’s Wednesday and who believes “No party would be complete without a spider or two creepy-crawling all over the table and spinning webs in the teacups.” Her sister, Rose, is a girly-girl who’s “really, really into fairies and princesses and everything pink”; Rose insists every guest to her birthday party wear wings and a tutu (the sole boy guest gets a tutu exemption). Rapprochement seems out of the question—until the girls inadvertently join forces to create a magical creature that embodies both their aesthetics. Hardy, making her debut, packs her story with incident, which only underscores the book’s many problems: its lack of pacing, its overreliance on humorless bickering as dialogue, and, most problematic, its lead characters, who are little more than a collection of tics. It’s visually weak as well—while Hardy attempts some relatively ambitious framings for her watercolors, her characterizations feel like little more than fleshed out doodles or marginalia. Ages 3–5. Agent: Joanna Volpe, Nancy Coffey Literary. (Apr.)