Braddock’s experience illustrating A Charlie Brown Valentine (2002) and other post-Schulz Peanuts productions stands her in good stead here, as she presents in big cartoon panels a cast of neatly drawn creatures whose pithy commentary (the insectivorous Cecil, on his friendship with Reggie the fly: “Ours is a complex relationship”) is more sophisticated than their pratfalls and other broad antics. No dice-“Catch you later,” the raptor sneers meaningfully as it flies off. Nothing if not nervy, Cecil even enlists the hawk to help by dropping rocks. Alas, it turns out to be not so easy for small creatures to stop giant bulldozers. Once safely back in the water, he calls together several pondside buddies including Jeremy the earthworm and Jeff, a “free-range hamster,” to brainstorm solutions to the crisis. Stopping a highway project that threatens his pond is going to take more than Cecil the toad’s ability to “toot.”Ĭecil discovers the danger thanks to a short flight in the talons of a predatory but, fortunately, olfactorily sensitive hawk.
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