October 1, 2024
A boy and his toy dinosaur leave the planet in search of the perfect present. Hugo and his dino sidekick made their debut in a flurry of messy, creative backyard adventures. In their second outing, their antics take them out of this world, on a fantastic, apparently imaginary voyage to the planet of Space Tigers. Their purpose? To find a present for Hugo's mother, whose birthday is approaching. When Dino asks what Mami likes, Hugo replies, "weird rocks!" And what better place to find them than in outer space, "where everything is weird!" In short order, the pair blast off to Space Tiger planet, whose feline inhabitants have run out of power because they've lost their Magic Power Stone. Hugo gleefully transforms himself into an extraterrestrial feline to uncover a series of clues and solve this mystery. The hunt leads through spikes and sludge, a treacherous tunnel, and finally to a volcano filled to the brim with pie. The duo's original mission becomes a bit secondary to the quest, but Rosell�'s chaotic, comedic stream-of-consciousness voice perfectly captures the zigzagging narrative logic of a young mind at play. Hugo, Dino, and their new Space Tiger buddy are all delightfully wild-eyed and wiggly-limbed, and the illustrations buzz, pop, and wobble their way to their final flourish--a ride home on a speeding asteroid! Hugo and his parents are brown-skinned and cued Latine. A satisfying and silly journey that revels in imaginative play.(Graphic fiction. 4-8)
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November 1, 2024
Grades K-3 Hugo knows just the thing to get Mami for her birthday: weird space rocks! Hugo and his buddy, Dino, blast off into a very big, very weird outer space only to crash land on a planet, where a magic power stone--the stone that magically powers the planet, naturally--has disappeared. Using his super magic, Hugo transforms into a space tiger and uses his space-tiger vision to search for clues (as he explains to Dino, to solve a mystery first one must find three clues). After a series of misadventures, the power stone is recovered, weird space rocks are collected, and the two return to Earth on a passing asteroid. This quick and silly story impeccably follows the logic used by excited kids telling their best story ever. The loose, rubbery art handily uses different colored speech bubbles to help readers distinguish between the speakers. The main story is followed by a brief vignette about Hugo and the space tiger finding the best way to fall asleep. A terrific use of a controlled vocabulary that never feels controlled.
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