Loonie Summer

Kelly L. Green is the co-editor of the Children’s Literature edition
of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

The Loonies are back! This time, 8-year-old Christopher Thomas and his
five little friends Elvin, Casimir, Gomeral, Appollino, and Zenon (who
are just three centimetres tall) spend time at Christopher’s cottage.
The Loonies get into just as much well-intentioned trouble as they did
in their first book, giving Christopher a smelly dead salmon for his
birthday (he wanted a goldfish), falling into the lake on a midnight
fishing expedition, and making windchimes out of the family’s keys so
that they won’t be able to return home from the beloved cottage.

This book is great fun, and Loonie fans will more than welcome its
arrival. Once again, Marc Mongeau’s inspired drawings add tremendously
to the Loonie atmosphere. In this outing, however, Duchesne seems to be
straining just a bit to keep up the divine looniness she created in The
Loonies Arrive, and has lost some of the insouciant frenzy of the first
book. Nevertheless, this sequel is a well-written first novel for young
readers, true to the Loonies and recommended to Loonie fans everywhere.