Married couple Marie-Louise Gay and David Homel have previously collaborated on a pair of illustrated novellas about an adventurous family that includes Charlie and his irrepressible little brother, Max. Travels with My Family (2006) and On the Road Again (2008) were freewheeling, picaresque tales of summer vacations and foreign adventures. Summer in the City is the third in the series, and as the title suggests, it alters the globetrotting formula by anchoring the action amid a family “staycation” during a hot Montreal summer break.

The boys’ summer is a series of minor disasters. They try to make a business out of finding lost cats, but that fails miserably, as does Charlie’s first attempt at dog-walking. They look after a friend’s goldfish and end up killing it. Charlie goes for a drive with his father and the two must abandon the car when a freak storm floods the expressway.

There is very little connection between these episodes, and each feels strangely weightless, with very little at stake. Even when something potentially dramatic happens – like the expressway flood, or the chapter in which Charlie and Max travel on a bus alone together only to end up getting off in the wrong city and in the middle of a biker convention – the tension is quickly defused, and the stories just peter out. Charlie and Max live in a consequence-free urban paradise where even running out into the street after an errant baseball makes you a temporary hero. Despite their mishaps, everything turns out great for the boys – for the reader, not so much. Summer in the City works as an easy transition for kids making the step up from picture books, but they won’t linger here long.