In A Fish Named Glub, the small and rather ordinary piscatorial protagonist swims around his bowl pondering the profound and the existential. Glub can’t stop asking himself questions: “Who am I?”“Where do I come from?”“Where do I belong?” And he can’t stop worrying. The world around his bowl, in the rundown diner where he comes to consciousness on page one, is filled with bossy men and the threatening women who, thinking the diner is no place for a scrawny yellow fish, try to dispose of him. But in the end Glub triumphs when his terrified darting about in the water produces shimmering underwater bubbles – bubbles that make real the dreams of whoever plunges their hand into his bowl.

Josée Bisaillon’s evocatively textured multimedia illustrations make each page a sensory delight. But while the idea of a small fish explaining the big picture might sound good on paper, A Fish Called Glub’s sometimes obtuse plot and occasionally awkward writing mean that in the end this book neither answers our questions nor engages our interest.

It’s the dawn of the twentieth century and the Tweedles are about to take the plunge and buy a car. Papa and Mama and little brother Francis are enthusiastic, but sister Frances is skeptical. The Tweedles eschew the unpredictable steam and noxious fossil fuel options and buy an electric model, a choice that elicits mockery from their neighbours. But the drive home is so traumatizing for Papa that, the next morning, he decides to ride his bike to work. That is how Frances ends up saving the day by driving the electric car – and her injured, previously scornful neighbour – to the hospital. At the end of The Tweedles Go Electric, we see little brother Francis and big sister Frances in the future: Francis becomes a racing car driver, while Frances drives the electric car from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

The illustrations by Marie Lafrance are extraordinary. The world she has created takes us back in time: whimsical penny-farthing bicycles, tidy stone houses with neat painted shutters, wooden barrels, and a motif of spinning old-fashioned car wheels with spokes.