Review by New York Times Review
THE SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOOD where I grew up had leafy oak trees, manicured lawns and absolutely no fences. Which meant that I, walking to and from elementary school, had to traverse a terrifying half-mile of pet pooches free-ranging themselves from yard to yard, barking, drooling, tail-wagging and scaring the dickens out of me and my Barbie lunchbox. I was (and still might be) desperately afraid of dogs. But that doesn't mean I'm completely immune to their charms. Mabel, the canine heroine of "Naughty Mabel" by Nathan Lane (yes, that Nathan Lane) and Devlin Elliott, illustrated by Dan Krall, tries her best to be as charming as can be. Mabel is a coddled French bulldog living the good life in a schmancy McMansion, enjoying spa days, caviar and licking her privates. Her human parents call her "naughty" for misdeeds as varied as knocking over a vase of flowers and driving a golf cart into a police car's fender. One evening, the rambunctious Frenchie is put to bed so that her people can throw a glamorous soiree. Which, of course, she crashes, to smashing and crashing effect - with tipped tables, shattered dishes and a resounding intestinal eruption that closes down the joint. Her owners forgive her. I don't know why. I honestly don't. Dan Krall's illustrations are charmingly frenetic and cartoony with a palette of turquoise and pink. The big-eyed, huge-eared Mabel is adorably rendered, especially when she's wearing her magenta tutu. She is, at the same puzzling time, a typical dog (see her running with hot dogs in her mouth) and an anthropomorphized child (see her paint over a painting of Marie Antoinette). The artist has a background in animation, and it shows: The page compositions are dynamic, and the book's characters are hilariously expressive. The book certainly owes a debt of tone and structure to Kay Thompson's "Eloise" and, in turn, Ian Falconer's "Olivia." But where Eloise begins her narration, "I am Eloise I am 6," Mabel opens with a less sympathetic "Hello, darlings. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Mabel. Mabel of the Hamptons." And where Thompson's portrait of a singular youngster has, at its heart, a story of a lonely child in an adult world, and Falconer's series is a salute to children's self-determination and imagination, I'm not quite sure what Mabel is trying to say. That it's fun in the Hamptons? That she's a party pooper? For all of Mabel's big-eared visual charm, I couldn't make any real sense of the story. Lazy Dave, in the book of the same name by a debut author and illustrator, Jarvis, is a much calmer pet. So calm, in fact, that he sleeps through practically the whole book. But that doesn't mean a lack of action: Dave is a sleepwalker, and thus, as he sleeps, he manages to have quite the time - chasing cats, walking tightropes, climbing mountains and visiting outer space. He even unwittingly apprehends a jewelry thief and is celebrated by the mayor, all of which goes unnoticed by his young owner. Dave looks a lot like "Harry the Dirty Dog," with his straight head, pert nose and midcentury-modern style. The rest of the art is equally appealing: Jarvis uses a limited color palette, textured shapes, and loose chalk and pencil lines to create a style both simple and sophisticated. Dare I say Oliver Jeffers meets Jon Klassen? I think I dare. And although, at the end of the book, both Dave and his owner remain strangely unaware of his somnambulistic heroics, the story is simply satisfying. The story of "Sad, the Dog," by Sandy Fussell, illustrated by Tull Suwannakit, is one with a similarly satisfying, if even simpler, story. "Sad" is the name of a bulldog puppy whose owners, the crotchety Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, not wanting him in the first place, pack up, relocate and leave him behind. The family who moves into their house discovers poor abandoned Sad and immediately takes him in. Every characteristic that the Cripps had considered a fault becomes, through the eyes of the new owners, a virtue. How lucky! Tull Suwannakit portrays Sad and his surroundings in soft watercolors, resulting in a calm and quiet book. Quiet, but not boring; on each page, small details draw the reader's eyes: a quizzical bird or two, a concerned mouse, a nervous garden gnome, a thoughtful face on a bunny slipper. Sad himself is sweetly painted, but the humans are oddly drawn with unreadable expressions and overly stylized in a way that I found rather disconcerting. The story of "A Dog Wearing Shoes," wonderfully told by Sangmi Ko, cinematically begins before the title page even appears. Mini and her mom find a small stray dog in the middle of a crowded street and decide to take him home. The dog, ahem, is wearing shoes. Mini and the dog have some fun together, but when she takes him to the park for a walk, he runs away, leaving one little yellow shoe behind, like a canine Cinderella. When the dog is located in an animal shelter, Mini finds it in her heart to look for the dog's original owner; the one who gave him shoes, of course. The dog and his young owner are joyfully reunited, and Mini and her mom return to the shelter in search of their own, albeit shoeless, pup. Ko's illustrations are in pencil with tiny pops of color, and adroitly straddle the line between cartoon and more illustrative art, like a drawing by Sempé. The spread where Mini and her mom give up the dog for lost is an emotional scene of long shadows and lonely white space. There's interesting pacing borrowed from sequential comics, and a lovely afterword with information about pet adoption. The dog himself is small, with a sweet face and fuzzy, floppy ears, and is so cute and gentle looking that I might be tempted to swallow my fears and go check out the pups at my local S.P.C.A. But probably not. I'm still a little scared. LISA BROWN is the illustrator, most recently, of "Mummy Cat," written by Marcus Ewert.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 6, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
Naughty Mabel is an engaging newcomer to the ranks of misunderstood free spirits. The tiny, pseudo-sophisticated French bulldog lives with her human parents in the Hamptons, where she enjoys adding excitement and panache to every social occasion. She rampages through their modest mansion, wreaking chaos in her wake, yet her doting humans always forgive her. This forgiving inclination is sorely put to the test when Mabel decides to crash a formal soiree, culminating in an unfortunate eruption of mansion-clearing gas. Thankfully, however, her parents love her no matter how big a mess she makes. Young readers will enjoy Mabel's irreverent antics, particularly as they're rendered in Krall's cartoonish illustrations, especially the spreads revealing the path of Mabel's destruction in a bright-red dotted line. Krall's stylish, colorful drawings add sly bits of humor perhaps a few celebrity cameos? and effectively emphasize Mabel's outsize personality. Mabel is somewhere between Fancy Nancy and Rotten Ralph, and her fashionable destruction is sure to charm little ones.--McBroom, Kathleen Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Lane and Elliott's first picture book begins with Mabel, a French bulldog with huge batlike ears, floating in a palatial Hamptons swimming pool. It ends with Mabel unleashing a fart so powerful that it sends her owners' guests fleeing in their formalwear. In between, Mabel tosses off bon mots ("I'm five! Oh, I know I don't look it. Besides, five is the new three!") and denies-and then impishly affirms-that she is indeed a bad dog. "Of course, I play by my own rules," she says while wreaking havoc on a miniature golf course. "I'm a maverick, what can I say?" Krall (Sick Simon) gives Mabel a visual personality that's part diva and part Auntie Mame, but it feels like he's pedaling awfully hard to achieve a champagne bubbliness. As for the text, if Lane could come to every home and read this book aloud in his inimitable cadence, readers would be thoroughly charmed. But on its own, it's a rambling monologue without any narrative cohesion beyond an arch attitude. Ages 4-8. Authors' agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Illustrator's agent: Abigail Samoun, Red Fox Literary. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-If Eloise had been a dog, she would have been Naughty Mabel, the overprivileged, overindulged canine heroine of this picture book. Like Eloise's, some of Mabel's humor is best appreciated by the adults who will be reading aloud, as when Mabel describes her age ("five is the new three"), but many of her antics will resonate with youngsters who wish they could get away with driving a golf cart or applying their own touches to the artwork on their parents' walls. One way to divide the world is between those who believe their pets should be regarded as children and that they should be admired by everyone they encounter, and those who do not. People in the former camp will like this book. VERDICT An amusing, if additional, purchase.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Library, NY © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Eloise, Schmeloise. French bulldog Mabel describes her luxurious life in the Hamptons with her "parents" ("very sweet, for humans"), who tolerate her destructive ways ("I just like to keep things interesting") and love her despite her party-ending flatulence (the book's grand finale). Actor Lane's larger-than-life personality comes through with every wisecrack and witty aside, and the ultra-glam art keeps up--somehow. (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A pampered French bulldog named Mabel leads a life of misbehavior in this celebrity vehicle. Mabel lives in a mansion in the Hamptons with a swimming pool and her own bedroom. She narrates her story with a worldly-wise and wisecracking voice, a sophisticated pooch always looking for something to get up to. Her mischievous antics are creative and entertaining, such as taking a golf cart for a joy ride and adding her own painted details to a huge, expensive portrait. The climax of Mabel's many misdeeds finds her crashing her owners' fancy dinner party around the pool. There, she eats too much human food, leading to a doggy digestive gas attack that clears the house. The evening ends with Mabel in bed in between her "parents," who reassure her of their unconditional love. The concept and illustrations work well together, but the story is long, plodding, and filled with adult-level quips and jokes that will fly over the heads of most children. One of these comments about Mabel's French ancestry is an old cultural stereotype that doesn't belong in the 21st century: "Maybe it's the French in me, but I do not like to bathe. Not one bit." Digitally produced, cartoon-style illustrations and a supersized format create a larger-than-life aura for Mabel's debut (a sequel is already in the works), but her story is frantic, not funny. Mabel's story may be a hit in the Hamptons, but will it play in Peoria? Maybe not. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
