Horn Book Review
In her third illustrated chapter book, the imaginative six-year-old tackles reading. In true Dory fashion, she finds herself traversing the pages of books as characters come to life. But Dory struggles to read, unlike best friend Rosabelle, which adds a layer of vulnerability to her already endearing character. The mix of real emotions with zany antics will delight and engage new readers. (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
While Dory's friend Rosabelle can read chapter books, Dory struggles with selections from the easy-reader bin. Initially resistant to learning, she begins to engage with the written word in her own original way. As always, fantasy flavors her reality, and Dory often draws her other classmates into her lively, imaginative play, which now includes a superhero. Hanlon has a winning way with the story's characters (real and imaginary) and dialogue. With amusing situations and expressive, childlike drawings, the third entry in the Dory Fantasmagory series will satisfy the many young chapter-book readers who like their books served with a generous helping of fun.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Many series for fledgling readers feature mischievous girls and their gradeschool exploits: Ramona Quimby, Junie B. Jones and Clementine, to name a few. Others, like the Magic Treehouse books, send children on fantasy adventures. Abby Hanlon's marvelous Dory Fantasmagory series, featuring the plucky heroine Dory, also known as Rascal, combines the two. As Dory herself puts it: "My two worlds swirl together like a chocolate and vanilla ice cream cone. Real and unreal get mixed up in one crazy flavor." On every page, Hanlon's charming illustrations - if you squint, they resemble a child's drawings - mix things up as well, interweaving layers of visual and narrative storytelling to invite us in to Dory's active imagination. The fourth and latest book in the series, DORY FANTASMAGORY: Head in the Clouds (Dial, $15.99, ages 5 to 8), will have fans rejoicing that Hanlon's hybrid formula is still going strong. Dory faces obstacles both mundane and enchanted, and surmounts them all. She dumps an objectionable winter coat and de vises a pretend game to captivate a weepy friend. After losing her first tooth, she recognizes the Tooth Fairy, shopping incognito, and chases her through a grocery store. And in perhaps her greatest triumph in the series so far, she foils the evil plan of her imaginary nemesis, Mrs. Gobble Gracker, to take over that benevolent spirit's nightly visits. Throughout the series, Dory deals with conventional problems - handling scornful older siblings, starting school, making friends, learning to read - in unconventional ways. In the first book, she faces her kindergarten fears by inventing Mrs. Gobble Gracker, an even more intimidating foe. With her looming stature and witchy features, she recalls James Marshall's illustrations of Miss Viola Swamp, "the meanest substitute teacher in the whole world," in "Miss Nelson Is Missing," by Harry G. Allard Jr. Dory's everyday world is populated with other magical and comic figures, like Mary, her monster, and Mr. Nuggy, her (male) fairy godmother. And while many stories for children send their protagonists back to the real world for good - Wendy grows up and can't return to Neverland; Lucy leaves Narnia; Jackie Paper abandons Puff the Magic Dragon - Hanlon does not champion maturity as the answer to adversity. A former first-grade teacher, she recognizes the value of coping strategies that are particular to children. Rascal becomes resilient, resourceful and adventurous thanks to the permeable boundary between reality and fantasy, not in spite of it. "Try not to imagine things," Dory's sister, Violet, tells her when she heads off to kindergarten. But it is Rascal's imagination that allows her to adapt to new surroundings, practice new skills and make new friends. In "Head in the Clouds," Hanlon once again shows an unerring sense of what distresses children (that "bunchy" winter coat), what excites them (candy canes discovered in pockets), and what they fear (a tooth fairy delivery gone astray). There is, as always, much to laugh over. We see Luke's and Violet's frustrated memories of life with infant Dory. We learn the contents of the Tooth Fairy's purse (like Beyoncé, she carries a certain condiment). And we get Mrs. Gobble Gracker's withering assessment of "Where the Wild Things Are": "I'll show them terrible teeth." When Dory loses her first tooth, her doleful friend Melody sobs, "It means you are growing up!" The admiring reader earnestly hopes not yet. ?
