School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-This comic, with its limited vocabulary for emergent readers, has a complex, mystical story line, which will also appeal to older children. Penelope, a fox with a broken heart, pursues that heart through water and air. Encountering cat guards at a palace, she leaps on a black horse with a red mane, retrieves her heart, and loses it as a spear carries it away. Then the fox is in a city, sobbing on a park bench before catching a double-decker red bus. A chicken, who has danced on the bus roof, takes her to the garden of lost things, where they find the heart but encounter a monster. Penelope sacrifices her heart to save her new friend. Cut-paper illustrations feature flat colors and clean lines. The visual narrative flows through large and small panels, where speech bubbles and sound effects are used sparingly but to great effect. For instance, "BUM BA DUM...BUM BA DUM" appears in two crescents, emphasizing the heart shape of the palace while also mimicking a beating heart. Youngsters will return to this tale of old and new friendship and loss, finding in Penelope's experiences something that speaks to their own hearts. An author's note discusses the story's origin, while endpapers addressed to parents and teachers give tips for reading comics with kids. An unusual and unique choice for all libraries.-Mary Jean Smith, formerly at Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
After her friend blasts off in a rocket ship, a fox loses the red heart representing their love. She faces many obstacles in order to rescue it, ultimately learning that there's something more important than the quested object. This beautifully packaged tale of friendship, intended as a "first comic," concludes with a tutorial titled "How to Read Comics with Kids." (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A nearly wordless tale, billed as "Level One" but probably with a more natural audience among teens or adults, centers on a long chase after a fugitive broken heart. The departure of her best friend in a rocket ship leaves Penelopedepicted in the geometrical, silkscreen-style art with a human body and the head and tail of a foxsitting beside the sea with her cracked heart in her lap. When that heart slips into the water and is carried away by dolphins, birds, a paper airplane and other agents, she pursues it, picking up a chicken-headed, cartwheeling companion she has met along the way. Penelope finds it at last in a "garden of lost things" but then sacrifices it to rescue her new friend from a toothy monster. In return, her new friend presents her with an egg that cracks open in the final scene to reveal an unmarked replacement heart. Sound effects and short lines of dialogue in the large sequential panels won't help younger readers make sense of either the characters or the sketchy storyline. A metaphorical journey toward healing from traumatic loss inspired, writes Rowe, by the death of her catnot, as the cover protests, a "first comic for brand-new readers!" (Graphic picture book. 13 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
TOON Books seems to be scouring the globe for cartoonists with a sensibility that will infuse sequential art with new perspective and style. Their latest find, the Brazilian British Rowe, brings an unusually bold sense of design to an uncommonly surreal story. When her astronaut beau rockets off, a tall and elegant fox loses her broken heart in the ocean. She dives in after it and rescues it from a shark only to have a playful dolphin whisk it away. So begins a whirlwind pursuit steeped in dream logic, involving a paper airplane, a horse, archers, and double-decker buses. Finally, a rooster ushers her into the garden of lost things, which allows the fox to make a final sacrifice and affords her heart a quiet, poetic rebirth. Sparsely worded, the narrative meshes seamlessly with the aesthetic in a dreamlike fantasy that might be obscure to the youngest end of its intended audience, but Rowe's use of strong, recognizable shapes and clear, powerful visual metaphors will keep imaginative kids mesmerized.--Karp, Jesse Copyright 2014 Booklist
