Merely players

The titular character in Mike Wu’s Ellie (Disney Hyperion, 40 pp, $18, ages 3-6) is, surprise surprise, an elephant. When her fellow animals in captivity learn that the zoo they call home is closing, they decide that it is up to them to save the day by sprucing it up. Every animal finds a task where they thrive — the giraffe prunes leaves, the gorilla clears boulders — except for Ellie, still too young and small to be of much use. It’s only when the zookeeper leaves his painting supplies out that Ellie learns that she might have artistic ambitions.

The plot is pretty bare bones and simplistic — no reason is given for the zoo’s closure, and none of the other animals seem to mind that their own special talents each come down to “good at cleaning.” But Wu’s watercolour illustrations are stunning and expressive, sitting right at the intersection of cartoonish and lifelike. Wu, who works as an animator at Pixar, has cited legendary picture book artist Bill Peet as an influence (Peet, a fellow Disney veteran, published his own book about an elephant called Ella in 1978). Though Wu might not have Peet’s storytelling chops, his own illustrations fit well into the late artist’s tradition. In Emily Adrian’s Like It Never Happens (Dial Books, 368 pp, $20 ages 14+), narrator Rebecca Rivers dedicates all her free time to her high school plays. Her clique of theatre friends, calling themselves the “Essential Five,” constantly get cast in the starring role of every production, with Rebecca as the lead.

So what happens when a group of kids obsessed with theatrics, drama and the spotlight spend all their free time together? Their subconscious need to overdramatize their own lives leads to whirlwind romances and destructive rumours to rival those on the stage. Adrian builds her story at a slow tempo through more exposition than action, careful with what she reveals and when. Her slice of life high school story mimics the structure of a play, a young adult homage to the spectacle of the stage.