“Okay, Art Club!”

From Chad Sell’s Doodleville.

When she was a small child, Drew realized that her drawings and art were very unique, because her artwork, or Doodles as she calls them, come to life often escape from the page, and interact with other people’s artwork.  When an Art Club field trip to the local Art Institute results in Drew accidentally releasing her Doodles in the museum, things quickly spiral out of control.  However, the museum fiasco does also inspire Drew to create a new, large Doodle: a friendly leviathan naked Levi.  The other members of Art Club—Beck, TJ, Zenobia, and Ameer—have all created new looks or worlds for their project, so Drew decides to introduce Levi.  While things initially go well, a dangerous misunderstanding causes Levi to begin attacking the other kids’ art.  Unable to stop Levi any other way, Drew fills him in with a black marker to destroy the dangerous Doodle, but it only makes him even more angry.  The rest of Drew’s Doodles are soon being attacked by Levi, but even though Drew sends them off to safety with the Art Club members, Levi continues to create dangers.  The harder Drew tries to stop Levi, the more powerful he seems to become and every failure places the Doodles in more danger.  When the Art Club comes up with a way to end Levi’s reign of terror forever, Drew struggles to understand and save Levi—from himself and others—before it’s forever too late. 

Though the story is different than originally presented and the characters sometimes struggles with size consistency, the overall adventure is fun. The story features a diverse cast of characters and manages to teach an important lesson for child readers. Doodleville is an interesting story that uses the power of imagination to draw in readers.