POPPY, BUTTERCUP, BLUEBELL, AND DANDY

An enthusiastic flower fairy rallies her friends in a grass-roots effort to spread flower-power through a bleak city.

Poppy and her friends Dandy, Bluebell, and Buttercup live on a hilltop, “spreading sunshine” everywhere they ride on their skateboards and scooter. One morning, Poppy wakes with a “strange tingling feeling” causing her to lead the Blooms into the city, where they spy a sign announcing the closure of the city’s last park. Poppy’s determined to save the park—but where is it? When efforts to see the park from atop a building fail, the Blooms fly downward on skateboards, landing unceremoniously in a soft, smelly dump. Speeding through alleys and side streets, dodging cars, and scaling buildings, they finally hitch aerial transport into the decrepit park, where they get to work. Back home on their hilltop, the Blooms happily see “just how far their magic had spread.” Drawn in caricaturelike black outlines with paper-white faces and wearing petal dresses and headgear in hues and shapes matching their flower namesakes, the whimsical Blooms visually stand out as powerful pops of color, humor, and positivity against the vague, dismal black, white, and gray backgrounds of a colorless, impersonal, and lifeless city, which eventually emerges transformed by overlaid circles of translucent color.

A playful albeit lightweight tribute to small things that make a big difference.