“He’s small! He’s prickly! He’s a HERO!” The teaser on the cover of John Lechner’s utterly absurd, absolutely hilarious easy graphic novel is only the beginning in a story distinguished by its droll humor. Sticky Burr lives with all the other burrs in his village in Burrwood Forest. He sticks out for being different, preferring art and music to trouble-making. “How come you never do prickly things like the rest of us burrs?” asks his nemesis, Scurvy Burr (“You might say he’s a bad seed.”). The light plot puts its hero in a number of sticky situations that are set-ups for the verbal and visual humor that abounds in this singular, captivating volume. Sticky saves his village and the day, and even shares a little philosophy in the end: “Mossy Burr says stars are like burrs . . . Each of us tries to shine out in the darkness and be seen. And every once in a while, we are.” (Ages 6–10)

Meet Sticky Burr, his unshakable friends, and his prickly foes! A beguiling graphic storybook guaranteed to grab young readers.

Welcome to Burrwood Forest, where a village of seed pods leads a busy life gathering food, building stick houses, and having extraordinary adventures. There are good friends like Sticky Burr and Mossy Burr, who stick together, and bad seeds like Scurvy Burr, who likes to irritate them every chance he gets. Watch out for wild dogs and maze trees, loyal insects and escapes on the fly in a gently quirky, delightfully detailed graphic storybook that middle-graders and ambitious younger readers are bound to get stuck on.