January 22, 2024
In a work that tackles the secret lives of couches, a nattily dressed red fox appears on a classic proscenium stage, promising readers plenty of juicy material about sofas, only to be interrupted by an equally well-dressed opossum, who insists that the fox is upholstering the truth. The lecture is all but stalled by their bickering, the possum censoring the fox’s dubious presentation boards with black tape, until they finally agree on one thing: couches eat coins. Even this détente quickly deteriorates, however, when the fox goes on to insist that couches also eat cats and grandmothers. It takes full-on mayhem, including an appearance by dinosaur-mounted couch police, to convince the possum that couches do have lives of their own. Employing anthropomorphized cushions and legs that give each couch a devil-may-care personality, Liniers (Wildflowers) details each of the fox’s assertions in pencil and watercolor sketches that speak their own loopy kind of truth. Via this collection of musings, Rubin (High Five) proves as quippy as ever (some couches “come from two chairs who love each other very much”), perhaps prompting human readers to regard their own settees in a new and more appreciative light. Ages 3–7. Author’s agent: Jennifer Joel, CAA. Illustrator’s agent: Angelica Erhart del Campo and John Lind, Lind Publishing and Media.