(2) PS Duck is looking for his spaghetti, but as Tiny Horse puts it, "spaghetti is the trickiest of all the pastas." A search ensues, and while the deadpan narration addresses the mission seriously, Duck and Tiny Horse look in all the wrong places (inside a boot, under a rug) and use all the wrong methods (digging, fishing). A recipe book provides a useful clue, pooh-poohed though it is by confident Tiny Horse: "You can't just MAKE spaghetti." Boldly hued illustrations, painted in gouache and digitally colored, range from vignettes and sequential panels to full-bleed spreads, with absurdity taking center stage. Why is Tiny Horse tiny while Duck is just the right size to live in a teapot? Doesn't matter. The silliness offers young readers and listeners plenty of opportunities to figure things out before the characters do (if your spaghetti is hissing, it might be snakes) -- and that's a heady-spaghetti feeling.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Stef Murphy. Freya and her mum arrive at a countryside log cabin suffused in gloomy blue with snow falling in the darkness. Mum tells her that "Dad loved this old place...He used to say it was magical," but Freya feels that the cabin is cold and empty with "just the two of them." Freya ventures outside with her sled and encounters, and follows, a friendly white fox. As the fox prances, "coloured sparks flew up from the snow." The fox pulls Freya on the sled, "sending frosty fires spiralling into the starlit sky" before it vanishes. Murphy's mixed-media illustrations show the night sky exuberantly shot through with the yellows, pinks, and whites of the northern lights, thin lines delicately and realistically outlining such natural elements as pine trees. Freya returns to the cabin, and the blues now look dazzling as she and Mum watch the sky and then sit together in a cozy nook with colorful touches such as stars hung over the window seat. Over the inviting fire is a picture of the family, including Freya's dad, as mother and daughter cuddle together over a photo album. A brief author's note reveals the story's connection to the Saami myth from Finnish Lapland of fire foxes creating the northern lights. This tender story combines mythology with an empathetic and spare narrative of loss and remembrance.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024