RUBY AND BUBBLES

Ruby is a little girl with an active fantasy life: Her pretend full-time job, twins and TV chat show keep her well-occupied and content, but all it takes is one well-delivered dis from her mean-girl neighbors to rock Ruby’s world. Turning to retail therapy, she buys a budgerigar best friend—fine, feathered, but flightless—which she names after her chewing gum (go figure). In the face of snotty suggestions that her bird is rather an oddball, Ruby launches elaborate but unsuccessful efforts to get him aloft. Eventually, of course, she comes to realize that it doesn’t really matter, and the book ends with Ruby and Bubbles walking off into the sunset (really), while those cutting queen-bees get their karmic reward, being pooped on by birds that do fly. Winstead’s watercolor-and-ink illustrations, mostly busy vignettes, are a sort of winsome blend of Tim Burton, Eloise and Bratz. Accompanied by typeface that sometimes varies to reflect the text, they are comic and cute enough, but they can’t quite get this lightweight story off the ground. (Picture book. 4-6)