Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews

A bucket, a small shovel, and an unfettered imagination are all it takes to transform a visit to a sandbox in a crowded public park into a brilliant adventure.All young Adele needs to do is give her bucket a tap. The sand inside crawls out on its own to dance, buildings and parent-bearing benches in the background float out of the frame, and nearby toys and trees acquire smiling faces. Then down a Sand Dragon's gaping maw tumble Adele and her newly animate companions to meet a tantrum-prone king, fly beneath a cloud of fluffy chicks, perch in a hot dog tree, and land on "a DESSERT island." "Yummy! Eat up now," says Adele gaily. "Who KNOWS what will happen next." Indeed. Ponti slips in Sendak-ian caricatures and other sight gags as he propels his white child and her motley crew of tiny fellow travelers on. (All, except for an anxious toy aptly named Stuffy, are clearly having a grand time.) They proceed through a series of suddenly transformed settings to a final slide down a giant's tongue that delivers Adele and all back to the sandbox. Readers, particularly the newly independent ones at whom this is aimed, will delightedly join the outing. An unconscionably tardy return for the young imagineer of the incomparable Adele's Album (1988)—welcome back! (Graphic early reader. 5-7)

ALA Booklist (Mon May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)

From the simplest childhood scenarios can great flights of fancy be dreamed. In a soaring homage to Maurice Sendak, Winsor McCay, and Lewis Carroll, French cartoonist Ponti sends little Adele to the park with her mother, where she is swept from the sandbox in a rolling, stumbling, tumbling, climbing, flying adventure. Ponti, prolific in his native France, has delightfully mastered aspects of form, pacing, tone, and age-appropriate storytelling and brings each delightfully to bear. Long horizontal pages are segmented to fully highlight the intricate action going on in both foreground and background, while also keeping the story moving ahead at a breakneck speed. Dangers (the bizarre cage bird) and enchantments (a snack-hunting flying nose) both unfurl with a matter-of-fact surrealism that reflects a child's penchant for taking the world's wonders in stride. Adele herself is flung about by powers beyond her control, but she's also allowed to rescue herself here and there, elements that will be familiar and deeply satisfying to young readers. It all adds up to a bright, brimming feast of lyrical zaniness.

Horn Book (Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)

In this comic book translated from the French, Adele escapes a crowded sandbox and embarks on a fantastic adventure. To ease beginning readers, the straightforward, deadpan text runs along the white space at the bottom of the pages. The ink and watercolor illustrations make no such concessions, instead reveling in the grotesque and their own busy complexity reminiscent of Maurice Sendak's art.

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

A bucket, a small shovel, and an unfettered imagination are all it takes to transform a visit to a sandbox in a crowded public park into a brilliant adventure.All young Adele needs to do is give her bucket a tap. The sand inside crawls out on its own to dance, buildings and parent-bearing benches in the background float out of the frame, and nearby toys and trees acquire smiling faces. Then down a Sand Dragon's gaping maw tumble Adele and her newly animate companions to meet a tantrum-prone king, fly beneath a cloud of fluffy chicks, perch in a hot dog tree, and land on "a DESSERT island." "Yummy! Eat up now," says Adele gaily. "Who KNOWS what will happen next." Indeed. Ponti slips in Sendak-ian caricatures and other sight gags as he propels his white child and her motley crew of tiny fellow travelers on. (All, except for an anxious toy aptly named Stuffy, are clearly having a grand time.) They proceed through a series of suddenly transformed settings to a final slide down a giant's tongue that delivers Adele and all back to the sandbox. Readers, particularly the newly independent ones at whom this is aimed, will delightedly join the outing. An unconscionably tardy return for the young imagineer of the incomparable Adele's Album (1988)—welcome back! (Graphic early reader. 5-7)