You and Me and the Land of Lost Things

June 4, 2024
Adventures Unlimited is the latest series from middle-fiction superstar Andy Griffiths, with the first instalment, The Land of Lost Things, full of the wacky, exuberant, imaginative shenanigans fans have come to expect from the author of the Treehouse series. This time, Griffiths partners with illustrator Bill Hope, whose work includes comics, look-and-find books, and highly detailed graphic narratives—all styles he uses in the black-and-white illustrations that fill every page of this book. Readers aged 6+ will love being one protagonist—‘You’—who, along with ‘Me’, embarks on an unlikely adventure, travelling by various fantastical modes of transport (try ‘flying-sock-powered adventure bath’) from a treasure cave to the ‘Lost Foot Empawrium’ to the high seas. Filled with odd characters (flying watches, a pirate rabbit, the swashbuckling Johnny Knucklehead, and a bull with anger management issues that he’s committed to working on), the nonstop, action-packed journey encompasses many narrative and graphic styles—with the unusual use of the second-person narrative voice being generally effective. The story includes several stories-within-stories and frequent meta-references to the plot twists and the near-misses of You and Me as they trawl the Land of Lost Things for treasure (and missing personal items). Part chapter book, part graphic novel, all humour and playfulness, the Adventures Unlimited series will delight existing Griffiths devotees, and win new ones.

March 1, 2025
The search for a misplaced rabbit's foot leads two adventurers into encounters with a bull who's lost his temper, much missing treasure, and many, many single socks. Clad anonymously in custom-made adventure suits that cover them head to toe, the never-named narrator ("Me") and sidekick ("You") drive their supposedly "uncrashable" adventure car through an interdimensional hole into the truly crowded place where all lost things go. There they run into both a tree and treasure hunter Johnny Knucklehead. Johnny, whose head is a giant clenched fist, had been reported lost in the jungle. This meeting is just the beginning of a long series of random encounters during which even the plot is lost (and then found again), Johnny is reunited with his mirror twin, Jimmy, and a lost lucky charm is recovered--only to become a bargaining chip after the adventurers are captured by a peg-legged rabbit pirate. Unlike that elusive plot, Griffiths has no trouble at all keeping firm hold on his intention to keep chortling readers entertained from start to final high-five. Hope's lively cartoon illustrations add visual action and sight gags to every page, and along with tacking on instructions for a personal homemade adventure helmet, he even takes over occasional two-page spreads for an intricate map, montage, or mini comic. Give a hand, or two, to this surreal, headlong romp.(Fantasy. 7-10)

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