Not Just Another Cute Face! Extremely Cute Animals Operating Heavy Machinery by David Gordon

ONE BEAUTIFUL SUMMER DAY, KAREN, AN EXTREMELY CUTE ANIMAL, WAS AT THE PLAYGROUND MAKING A SAND CASTLE.

It's an idyllic scene--Karen, an exemplary and endearingly tutu-ed little pink rabbit is busy sculpting a charming little medieval village with her cunning little plastic shovel and pail, surrounded by equally engaging and cute chums.

But this is no pink paradise! Enter the bad guys--Skylar, the head honcho, and his henchmen Mike and Trent, who declare this a cute-free zone.

WHAT DID I SAY, KAREN?

I SAID THIS IS MY PLAYGROUND AND NO STUPID SAND CASTLES!

Down come the cute castles and lovely little cottages. SMASH! CRASH!

Still the dainty Karen is undaunted, and she and her cute cronies rebuild the village, bigger and better, and with a moat to keep the riff-raff out.

But the bully boys were just waiting for the chance to crush the castle, crash the cottages, and maul the moat once more.

Okay, that's it!

EXTREMELY CUTE... DOESN'T MEAN ... YOU CAN'T GET EXTRA MAD!

The cutesy crew commandeers the construction equipment in the park--the heavy-duty dozer and the sky-crane 'copter--to steamroll the bullies and build the biggest and best playground ever. Karen wields her acetylene torch welding girders without scorching her tutu, and Josh pilots the copter to construct a veritable Taj Mahal of a water slide and bumper car track, surrounded by a stout security fence, all with...

NO BULLIES ALLOWED!

But you should never underestimate the empathetic qualities of extremely cute animals, in David Gordon's Extremely Cute Animals Operating Heavy Machinery (Simon and Schuster, 2016), as the almost excessively cute critters craft a truce with Skyler and his mean-spirited minions, and peace reigns over the play space. Gordon slyly slips in a bit of satire at the expense of the cuddly cast of characters in many a fanciful animal tale, in which all ends in extreme peace in the playground--where everyone agrees to limit the occasional smashing and stomping to their own castles only.