ALA Booklist (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

In this adorable, colorful, richly illustrated children's book, readers meet a narrator who has about a million amazing story ideas t he simply cannot draw. The narrator explains his super, amazing idea for a story, about a mouse who battles dragons, and wistfully goes on to introduce his friends, all impressively accomplished illustrators. After readers meet all of his buds, the narrator realizes that maybe his gift is in telling stories, and asking for help with the illustrations is how he'll be able to share them with the world. This playful, metaliterary picture book emphasizes friendship and teamwork as well as resilience and creative thinking. Once the narrator gets all of his friends on board incidentally, all recognizable and talented illustrators, including Tillie Walden, Jessixa Bagley, and Ethan Young ey bring his story to life in a dense collage of scenes combining their individual contributions. Fishman's own scrawly artwork is a funny contrast to the visual feast of the closing pages, which engagingly realize the settings and characters he imagined. Comical and empowering for little ones.

Kirkus Reviews

Even if you can't draw, you can still tell a good story-with a little help.Told as a doleful and humorous monologue that often directly engages readers, the book begins with several unillustrated pages and a lament that the unseen narrator is very bad at drawing despite lots of practice. The narrator includes a stick figure animal drawn with markers as well as a forest of pine trees ("The only thing I know how to draw…but that's because it's basically a scribble") as evidence of their poor artistic ability. The narrator does have other skills, such as making the best cookies. But being bad at drawing means the narrator can't bring to life their imagined adventure about "a mouse named Bailey who rides a half-cat half-bird named Catbird, and how they save the mouse kingdom from invading wand-wielding dragons!" What's worse, the narrator has several talented friends who can draw hot air balloons, cats, birds, and dragons-wait! Perhaps the narrator can exchange cookies for illustrations. This artwork begins with basic, childlike drawings, then shifts to monochromatic, portfolio-worthy scenes by the friends. Readers then see polished thumbnail sketches and, finally, a fully rendered and colorful spread worthy of a great graphic novel. Adding to the fun, several friends of the author contributed their talents: Jessixa Bagley, Armand Baltazar, Anna Bond, Travis Foster, Tillie Walden, and Ethan Young. (This book was reviewed digitally.)A creative story with a sound message: If at first you don't succeed, ask a friend for help. (Picture book. 5-8)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

They’re good at math and can make delicious cookies, but the unseen narrator of this title by Fishman (When I Wake Up) finds their art less than polished (“It’s like my hands can’t hear my brain”), offering proof of this perceived lack in the form of several marker-style drawings. But the speaker does have a ripping story idea, featuring “a mouse named Bailey who rides a half-cat half-bird named Catbird, and how they save the mouse kingdom from invading wand-wielding dragons!” Though they don’t appreciate their own rendering of the story, the book’s mood lightens when they realize that they can connect with a few artist friends, each of whom has a particular specialty. Readers are treated to sketches and full-color spot art from each of the illustrators—Jessixa Bagley (Courage Hats) shows Bailey decked out in a regal costume, and Armand Baltazar (the Timeless series) envisions the mouse’s hot air balloon—and then an exuberant, full-bleed spread that incorporates the collaborators’ work. The book’s conceit that some talents are binary—one’s either “good” at something or not—and set in stone at an early age is debatable, but its overarching message is worthwhile: collaboration is worth seeking out because it makes the most of everyone’s talents. Ages 5–8. (Oct.)