WALRUS BRAWL AT THE MALL

Extinct creatures gear up for the ultimate battle!

In his newest adventure, Trilobite decides he wants to go viral by making a funny video. After uploading content showing himself getting hurt, Bite garners millions of views (and a paycheck!), and his rival, Opabinia, decides to join in on the action. Bite’s reckless attention-seeking antics land him in the hospital, where best friend Amber, a nonspeaking walking whale from the Eocene Era, gets into an altercation with a surly walrus. As the competition for internet fame grows, Bite, Amber, and human friend Tiffany find their boat capsized after a confrontation with Opabinia, landing the motley crew at the Sea Mall Ball, a spherical floating shopping center. When a revenge-seeking baby walrus picks a fight with Amber, Bite and his friends must survive an all-out pinniped rumble to escape. This second series entry keeps the pages flying with its over-the-top zaniness and abundant silliness, but it has a slyly smart undercurrent throughout, with the author/illustrator offering quiet social commentary and deftly tying up seemingly unrelated narrative threads. His illustrations are singular and stylish, featuring hand-lettered and hand-drawn, two-toned art. Although this is a follow-up to The Mighty Bite (2023), a cheery introduction establishes that each volume is a self-contained episode and can be read in any order.

A sensationally silly sugar rush of a read.