Chu’s Day at the Beach

The cute little giant panda, Chu, jumped on the scene in Chu’s Day to the delight of parents and children alike in a fun board book, as a circus suffered the deleterious effects of Chu’s sneezing. Now the duo–Gaiman and Rex–are back with the followup, Chu’s Day at the Beach; this time it’s in full picture book format.

As the title says, Chu joins his parents in a trip to the beach. As Chu is enjoying his ice-cream, he takes off his sunglasses and looks up at the sun, making his nose twitch, and then lets out a big squeeze that causes an even bigger problem than blowing away the circus and this time it will take some other characters to help him put everything back together again.

The beauty of the picture book is in the larger artwork from Adam Rex, which is vibrant and colorful and simply fascinating to study with the vast menagerie hanging out at the beach in their strange and entertaining anthropromorphic way. The story’s fun and the artwork is astonishing; it’s an all around great book.