Thank you, San Francisco!

I don't typically like to blow my own horn, but I just read a super-cool review of TROUBLE GUM in the San Francisco Chronicle and wanted to share. Thanks a lot, Regan McMahon!

Maybe hard times inspire the imagination, but for whatever reason, the books that are leaping off the pile this month are wild and wacky.

First up is the irresistible Trouble Gum, by Matthew Cordell (Feiwel and Friends; 32 pages; 16.99; ages 2-6). Move over, Olivia, there's a new pig in town. His name is Ruben, and he, too, is headstrong. "You know the rules," his mom tells him after Grandma gives him some bubble gum. "Don't play with your gum. And don't blow big, sticky bubbles with your gum." Ruben does all three and makes a big mess, roping his little brother, Julius, into his crime spree.

The spare art is graphically dynamic, often featuring tiny pen-and-watercolor drawings of the pigs below a single line of type or a giant word like "THUMP" or "POP."

The other books featured are: Jeremy Draws a Monster, by Peter McCarty; Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem, by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Adam Rex; The Marshmallow Incident, written by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett; and The Calamitous Adventures of Rodney and Wayne, Cosmic Repairboys: The Age Altertron, by author-illustrator Mark Dunn.