Zooni Tales: Keep It Up, Plucky Pup

K-Gr 2–Three stand-alone stories, with the first featuring a napping Zooni who awakes to find her shoe missing and enlists friends to help with the mystery. Kangaroos, an emu, a cockatoo, and a group of monkeys all lead the puppy to three rascally shrews. The little thieves try to hide but are quickly found, and subsequent confessions from the shrews as well as Zooni reveal that the shoe has multiple uses. In the next tale, Zooni happens upon three friends who have lost a fourth in a cave. Brave Zooni leads the way through dark tunnels in search of Cat and meets a friendly bat colony. In the final story, a sudden squall causes havoc in the bay sending Zooni and Cat far from home in their boat. As they try to get back, they pick up their friends lost at sea, but soon discover that they have brought on more rescues than the boat can carry. A kind whale shows up just in time. Clever use of short rhyming phrases coupled with action-packed but gentle stories of friendship will appeal to early readers. The comic storytelling style makes good use of panel sizes, gutters, and dialogue balloons.