Fortunately, Unfortunately is a crazy adventure featuring many of the fantastic settings kids dream about.  In only a sentence or so per page, the story (and our intrepid hero) ricochets through the ocean, an alien spacecraft, a pirate ship, a dinosaur-populated lost world, and more.  Each scenario has an upside and a downside, and one or the other usually propels our protagonist into the next environment.

This story has many strengths, including its relative brevity, its rollicking rhythm (while not in rhyme, the repeated use of the title words give the text a driving pace), and its mix of appealing settings.

However, there are a few things which could be improved.  The adventuring child, as well as his mother and grandmother, are all extremely anthropomorphized monkeys, for no apparent reason.  In contrast, our pirates (the only other humanoid characters) are entirely human.  There is no obvious purpose for the ape-ish appearance of the starring character, and in a tale that is already fantastical, making our introductory characters of a non-human species is unnecessary and worse, distracting.

The pictures themselves are of varying sizes, sometimes taking up just a small portion of the large pages, sometimes filling an entire spread.  While the text is extremely conducive for large group sharing, the smaller-scale watercolors would be difficult to see from any significant distance.

Although this title has weaknesses, children will enjoy the bright colors, fast-pacing, and dramatic setting(s) of the story.  This is a fun take on the familiar “good-news, bad-news” genre, and will be a fun addition for many libraries.