Mulysses

Gr 3 Up–Mulysses, our strange, almost horselike humanoid protagonist, is having a rather challenging go of things lately. He lost his job as a hairdresser, his landlord evicted him, and he needs money fast to get his personal belongings back. When he overhears that an adventurous boat captain (another humanoid with an elephant trunk) is looking for a first mate to join him in his quest to find the world’s biggest eye—and is willing to pay him royally for it—he’s in. As they go about their quest, Mulysses finds a stowaway bartender (a human woman), makes friends with a fish in a sweater, and finds that the captain isn’t quite as adventurous as he lets on. Eventually locating the eye in the cave of a fearsome flesh-eating monster (the image of which could be frightening to some younger readers), Mulysses must figure out how to get it and then what to do with it. Torseter’s illustrations feature a combination of large, full-page color panels and spreads with smaller panels in black and white, expertly using color to communicate the shifting feelings of the characters. A spread of a whale is particularly striking, evoking Japanese wave woodblock prints. Though the book broadly references works like The Odyssey and Moby Dick, prior knowledge isn’t necessary to enjoy the story. The use of narrative text on the tops and bottoms of the panels can sometimes be difficult to notice, since it is quite small in proportion to the rest of the art. All human characters in the book have white skin.