The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Mortensen, Lori

If Wendell Had a Walrus

32 pp. | Holt | April, 2018 | Trade ISBN 978-1-62779-602-6 $17.99

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Matt Phelan. Wendell gets to thinking about what he'd do if he had a walrus for a friend. Mortensen's pitch-perfect child humor combined with Phelan's knack for body language and facial expressions brings the pair's joy clearly to the pages. The problem is that Wendell doesn't have a walrus. Then Wendell meets another boy with a whale for an imaginary friend, and the two become nonimaginary friends.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2018