The Getaway (review)

The masked mouse has swiped the cheese, and now he's on the lam from the police. Desperate, he enlists the help of readers and listeners to warn him with a whistle if they spy Ace Lawman Detective Jumbo Wayne Jr., the elephant who's the long arm (well, trunk) of the law in these parts. As the cartoon mouse zooms on his yellow motor scooter through the photographed landscape of Vere's clear line illustrations, viewers have several opportunities to sound the alert for what appears to be Detective Wayne. Those eyes high up in the dark . . . oh, it's one of the feral cat bikers that have been terrorizing the neighborhood. The huge feet . . . no, it's an upstanding rhino citizen. The trunk snuffling deep beneath the manhole cover . . . only a tourist anteater from New York. But of course evildoers always come to a bad end, and just when the mouse finds the perfect hill on which to relax and devour his ill-gotten gains, he finds he's on the hat of Wayne himself. Vere employs several tricks to keep the youngest members of the audience on track, from the direct, breathless banter of the mouse (think of Mo Willems' pigeon), to the dotted lines that trace his progress, to the hot colors on cartoons and dialogue bubbles that keep the characters from getting lost in the scenery. Adults will better appreciate a few elements than kids; nonetheless, this should catch the fancy of fans of Pinkwater's Irving and Muktuk or any miscreants who enjoy aiding and abetting a criminal.