Tuff Fluff

With retro flair and pun-filled prose, Scott Nash takes young readers on a comical adventure into the underbelly of the stuffed animal world. He might look like nothin' but a moth-eaten stuffed animal, but to the residents of Los Attic, this shabby rabbit is Tuff Fluff, Private Eye. No case is too tough for his fluffy mind . . . except maybe the case of Duckie's missing brain. "Someone's been playing foul with this fowl," the hard-boiled detective declares. But as he plunges into the dark and dusty places, showing his smarts -- and his soft side -- can he find enough clues to fit together the pieces of this peculiar puzzle? Editorial Reviews From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 4-Tuff Fluff, a yellow bunny with a rakish black eye patch, is the Chandleresque private eye enlisted to solve the mystery of Duckie's missing brain. He lives in Los Attic, the city of worn-out playthings, and works out of an office where it's always 3:29 a.m. by "the watch on the wall." Dwelling in cardboard cartons, the inhabitants of Los Attic have mismatched eyes and leak stuffing at the seams. They join forces to aid Tuff in his search; without his brain, Duckie can no longer speak, and all of the animals miss his storytelling. In fact, they are so keen to hear the end of his last tale that even the rivalry between the "beanbags" and the "stuffs" is forgotten in the quest. The contrast between Nash's 1930s' gumshoe writing style and the actual plot of toy animals anxiously searching for Duckie's stuffing is very funny. The illustrations, done in gouache and pencil, are bright and full of humorous details-a ceiling fan made from paper clips, a beauty parlor where a pink poodle styles a penguin, a Lego block lying in an alley. The book is divided into short chapters and the text is presented in two columns, a format that, along with the witty narrative, makes Tuff Fluff a particularly good choice for reluctant readers. Children will fall in love with this soft-boiled detective.-Jane Barrer, Washington Square Village Creative Steps, New York City Copyright å¨ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Booklist Gr. 1-3. In Los Attic, if a toy wants a case solved, it goes to hard-boiled PI rabbit Tuff Fluff. Bluebell the bear asks Tuff to figure out what has happened to the brain of Duckie, who tells stories to the animals in the attic. Nash, familiar as an illustrator, is making his authorial debut here, and he hasn't yet learned the lesson that when it comes to text, less is more. His story goes on too long and occasionally doesn't make much sense. Another problem: children may not be familiar with what's being parodied. What saves this, along with occasional nuggets of humor, is the brilliantly colored artwork. Nash goes all out, pulling a lot from his bag of artistic tricks to use in both the illustrations and the design of his oversize pictures. By mixing up the layout with two-page spreads, full-page pictures, and spot art, he creates a visually captivating effect, and his toy characters are delightfully eccentric and fun to look at--even when the text lags. Ilene Cooper Copyright å© American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.