Linty: A Pocketful of Adventure

So begins this graphic novel based on the premise of a ball of lint who finds himself alone in a pair of jeans, amusing himself day after day with games of Solo Marco Polo. When one day a young boy finally puts on his older brother’s pants, Linty finds himself joined by a number of other random pocket items, such as an acorn and a lollipop. His new-found friends invite others, and soon the group is enjoying games of Marco Polo, and Linty learns about the outside world. When the boy empties his pockets in preparation for laundry day, Linty finds himself alone once again, struggling to keep out of the lint screen and back into the pocket. Back in the boy’s bedroom, he learns how to look out of the pocket and begins calling “Marco Polo” to any new friends that might be around.

Linty: A Pocketful of Adventure is a book based around a highly original, if banal, idea, that will definitely appeal to young and reluctant readers with its combination of text and images and its in-jokes and visual gags, such as the Solo Marco Polo games that stretch along the page as the frames get smaller and smaller. But the gags and overarching cheeriness seem to drown out any sense of real story, and even the friendship angle comes across as joyless. There seems to be not quite the right balance of empathy and irony, with the result that the story comes across as less than totally fun, and not particularly illustrative of the value of friendship. Still, the book will come in handy for readers who need something with no serious pretensions to draw them in.