Mr. Reez lives a quiet life until the day he puts too much pepper on his salad. A breeze from the open window swirls the pepper up his nose and prompts him to erupt in “a Guinness Book of World Records sneeze.” This gigantic sneeze blows him backward out the window, across the lawn and across the road, where he narrowly misses a bus. The sneeze propels him across the world at the speed of sound. He soars over mountains, across deserts, over rain forests and above great cities. At last he bounces into the basket of a hot-air balloon, where the friendly balloonists offer to share their peppery lunch. Mr. Reez sneezes again – and this time is propelled back home.

Sami Suomalainen’s illustrations are filled with chaotic movement, and capture the manic energy the story demands. The pictures of Mr. Reez being blown out of his apartment window at the beginning, and tumbling back in at the end, are masterpieces of chaos filled with flying dogs, cats, and furniture, flapping curtains, and cascading books.

Unfortunately, the text lacks this energy. Mr. Reez’s adventures are wacky enough to be fun, but the text’s wordiness slows the action. The mechanism of the sneeze’s power is unnecessarily complex; at one point Mr. Reez hits an air pocket and plunges downward only to be caught up again by the force of the sneeze, which is also capable of entangling an air force jet. These details stall the reader and dilute the fantasy of the story. What could have been a fast-paced, hilarious book is instead merely amusing.