Review by Frank Plowright

Over two previous books Gabby Torres has been well established as a likeable, enthusiastic nine year old who throws herself wholeheartedly into everything she does. So why does she know what you’re doing? Well, she’s been feeling poorly, and has to stay at home so she doesn’t infect her friends, and she has a pair of binoculars through which she starts watching the neighbourhood from her window. She can see her friend Finn reading a book in the garden, and there are folk moving in across the street.

As before, Angela Dominguez varies her storytelling techniques in this book for young readers. Some sections are provided as comics, but more are illustrations accompanying text, but also as before, Dominguez has such an accomplished way of building a story around Gabby’s endearing personality that she’ll draw readers in no matter the format.

While her father thinks she’s birdwatching, Gabby’s actually watching her new neighbours, treating them as the type of investigation she’s carried out in earlier books. Because she never sees them, just what goes on in their garden, her speculations about them become ever wilder and funnier.

Dominguez’s drawings are simple, but character rich, transmitting what Gabby’s feeling and thinking, while defining her neighbourhood and school. Keeping the colouring relatively plain also works well, and the way Gabby is portrayed constantly observing draws readers into her suspicions.

Is she right about the neighbours? Could they be aliens, smugglers or hiding bigfoot? All are among Gabby’s theories, and the idea that a well-read child has such an array of wrong ideas at her disposal is delightfully played out. Gabby delivers another winner.