Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Barnabus is a mouse/elephant hybrid who has "lived in a secret lab...as long as he could remember." The location of the laboratory is quickly revealed on an impressive double-page spread showing first a "perfectly ordinary" city street -- including a store called Perfect Pets -- and then its underground, which makes visible the secret pet-manipulation operation. Barnabus, trapped in a glass jar alongside other pint-sized hybrid creatures, learns about the outside world from a cockroach named Pip. The trees, lakes, and "mountains that reached all the way to the sky, lit with their own stars" (a.k.a. high-rises) described by Pip spark Barnabus's sense of wonder. After the creatures are officially deemed "Failed Projects," off to be recycled into something more perfect, a glass-shattering "BWAAHHH!!" (courtesy of Barnabus's trunk) jump-starts their escape. The graphite and digitally colored illustrations convey a gentle, handmade quality through substantial cross-hatching and an emphasis on shading. A harrowing chase through the lab's pipework showcases the Fan brothers' strong sense of perspective, spatial continuity, and skillful expression of light. After Barnabus releases a massive, tentacled creature (also a Failed Project) from its watery tank, the entire cast of creatures rockets up a pipe and into Perfect Pets, creating a literal splash that leads to their freedom and reinforces Barnabus's optimistic mantra that "nothing is impossible." (c) Copyright 2023. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

This epic tale of escape and liberation, set in a clandestine underground lab producing genetically engineered Perfect Pets, stars courageous Barnabus, half mouse, half elephant. Along with a collection of creatures, Barnabus is a Failed Project, dubiously destined, according to cockroach pal Pip, to be “recycled.” Barnabus and his roommates—Light-Up Lois, Mushroom Sloth, and others—spend banal days imprisoned in bell jars, fed, poked and prodded by the Green Rubber Suits. With their fates sealed, Barnabus avows, “We need to escape!” Discovering that his elephantine trumpeting can break glass, Barnabus frees the others. The brave misfits, pursued by their creators and captors, escape through venting, emerging into another lab. The band works together to free a fellow captive, an enormous, cyclopian marine creature, releasing a flood of tank water that sweeps them out of the building’s depths and into the pet shop above the lab. The escaped company, discovering the wide world foretold by Pip, finds a lake, sunshine, grass, and trees: “a place that might be home.” The Fan brothers (Eric and Terry, joined for this project by Devin) generate copious precisely rendered, action-packed illustrations that capture the lab’s sinister labyrinth, the poignant features of the “failed” creatures, and moonlit cityscapes whose skyscraper “mountains” reach “all the way to the sky, lit with their own stars.” A heartfelt, timely allegory celebrating diversity, bravery, and solidarity. (Picture book. 4-9) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Barnabus is a mouse/elephant hybrid who has "lived in a secret lab...as long as he could remember." The location of the laboratory is quickly revealed on an impressive double-page spread showing first a "perfectly ordinary" city street -- including a store called Perfect Pets -- and then its underground, which makes visible the secret pet-manipulation operation. Barnabus, trapped in a glass jar alongside other pint-sized hybrid creatures, learns about the outside world from a cockroach named Pip. The trees, lakes, and "mountains that reached all the way to the sky, lit with their own stars" (a.k.a. high-rises) described by Pip spark Barnabus's sense of wonder. After the creatures are officially deemed "Failed Projects," off to be recycled into something more perfect, a glass-shattering "BWAAHHH!!" (courtesy of Barnabus's trunk) jump-starts their escape. The graphite and digitally colored illustrations convey a gentle, handmade quality through substantial cross-hatching and an emphasis on shading. A harrowing chase through the lab's pipework showcases the Fan brothers' strong sense of perspective, spatial continuity, and skillful expression of light. After Barnabus releases a massive, tentacled creature (also a Failed Project) from its watery tank, the entire cast of creatures rockets up a pipe and into Perfect Pets, creating a literal splash that leads to their freedom and reinforces Barnabus's optimistic mantra that "nothing is impossible. (c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.