Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 07/01/2017 Poor Platypus! All he wants to do is play, but his efforts to hop with the kangaroos, run with dingoes, climb with possums, and fly with fruit bats all have the same sad result: a day of graceless splatting. Things go much better the next day, though, when he leaves the land behind and joins penguins and other marine playmates—and discovers that in the water, being a “SPLATypus” is just his style. Platypus, fitted out with an oversize bill and huge webbed feet, both bright blue, is particularly eye-catching, and Urbanovic works a startling transformation on him in her cartoon illustrations as he evolves from floppy klutz on land to a graceful, positively balletic figure in water. The terrestrial members of her Down Under cast seem oddly uninvolved in the episode, neither welcoming Platypus nor reacting (sympathetically or otherwise) to his pratfalls, so the message here has more to do with finding the proper setting for one’s own talents and abilities than reaching out to those with different ones. - Copyright 2017 Booklist.