Bitsy & Boozle Tell a Story!

Gr 2-5–A fantastical and educational exploration into story structure. Collaborators Goetter and Riess (The Bawk-ness Monster) introduce the Point of View (POV) sisters and their careers as storytellers. Bitsy POV is a storyteller-in-training, and the youngest ogress sibling. She sets out to tell her first third-person story using Boozle, her wizard friend, as the protagonist. Boozle does not speak, but punctuation marks and facial expressions are beautifully constructed to reveal his thoughts and feelings. An unwilling participant, Boozle is forced to climb Story Mountain and face tasks Bitsy sings or narrates alongside his panels. Pen and ink, rendered digitally, are rich and vibrant. The use of space around panels to indicate Bitsy’s story, and then her leaning over panels when Boozle resists playing his role, are brilliant. It allows the story to breathe and demonstrates the difficulty writing can present with quirkiness and compassion. Story structure terms, such as rising action, climax, flashback, foreshadowing, and more, are used well and with a great sense of humor. In one scene, Bitsy attempts to pronounce denouement, asking, “how are you supposed to say this, then.” A glossary of terms and explanation of Boozle’s speech bubbles are provided as back matter.