Marlon Finds a Way - Dan Bailes

Author: Dan Bailes

Series: Marlon's Marvelous Adventures, #1

Genre: Children's Fiction

Rating: 4.25 stars.

A cute story about a cat who wants to be friends with a sparrow.

Marlon the cat gets mad easily and is known among his friends as Mad Marlon. His friends have taught him the Quiet Count, which he tries his best to use while he’s angry. One day, he sees a little sparrow named Silky and is awed by her beauty. He wishes to be her friend, against all his natural instincts of “creep and pounce.” But will a sparrow really trust a cat to be her friend? This story details Marlon’s attempts at convincing Silky that he’s just like her and will be a good friend, and at the same time, reveals how Marlon strives to maintain his cool in difficult situations.

The format is of a story within a story, with Marlon’s tale being narrated by a Mom to her two sons Ben and JJ. (These names, I think, are those of the author’s grandsons. What a sweet gesture!)

Marlon’s story is adorable. I loved his antics and his misguided endeavours at winning Silky’s trust. There are many hilarious scenes, each of which will make children laugh out loud. I also liked Marlon’s interactions with his younger brother Albert. Their relationship is like that of typical siblings – bickering and teasing, but still being there for each other.

There are plenty of wonderful themes in the story. It touches upon empathy, not judging by looks, controlling your anger and dealing with negative situations calmly, and self-acceptance. It also shows that you needn’t change yourself to attract a friend. While I am not a fan of the count-to-ten method to control anger (it rarely works, at least for me), it is implemented fairly well in the story.

Where I am left in two minds is the plot device of using story-within-a-story in a children’s book. On the plus side, the narration by Mom is also fantastic. In between her story about Marlon, she intersperses general remarks or observations or humorous anecdotes to her kids. The formatting for Mom’s sections is visibly and clearly different, so it ensures that we understand the difference between the two narratives clearly. At the same time, it might be a little confusing for younger kids to keep track of, especially as Mom’s comments come pretty randomly and regularly throughout the story, not just at the start or the end of chapters.

There’s an Author's Q&A at the end about how the story came into being. I found this informative. It is always good to know how a book idea germinated and whether the final product did justice to the original intention. In this case, I think it did succeed to a great extent.

There are B&W illustrations sprinkled in between the story, and at the start of every chapter. I wasn’t a big fan of these. Some of them are cute, and support the content of that page. But in general, the sketches didn’t add to the fun of the story. Also, I would have preferred colour illustrations.

The book is aimed at readers between 6-9 years of age, and the language level is appropriate to the target audience. It might also serve well as a readaloud, but maybe it would work better if the narrator could only read out Marlon’s sections and skip Mom’s sections.

Overall, this is a really sweet book with some touching and some funny moments. I did enjoy it and would recommend it for sure.

My thanks to author Dan Bailes and BookSirens for the ARC of “Marlon Finds a Way”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Marlon's adventures continue in "Marlon and the Scary Something." Read my review HERE.