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PRESCHOOL
Ruttan, Molly

The Stray

32 pp. | Penguin/Paulsen | May, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-0-525-51446-6 $17.99
(2) PS This charming tale of a family's encounter with an amiable alien is really two parallel narratives, one told in the text and the other in the illustrations. The simple, straightforward text describes a family's relatively ordinary experience of finding a stray and adopting it as a pet. "He didn't have a collar, and he didn't have a tag...so we brought him home. We named him Grub." The illustrations, however, depict a more unusual story. The "stray" that the family adopts is in fact a tentacled, bug-eyed alien discovered after a crash-landing on Earth. The family is enchanted by Grub and his ability to levitate objects; however, the alien is tearful and homesick. Hoping to return Grub to his home, the family distributes "Found" posters around town, allowing Grub's own family to find him and reclaim its missing member in dramatic tractor-beam fashion. The charcoal, pastel, and digital illustrations are gently colorful, with regular additions of printlike textures. Vibrant lime-green beams radiate from Grub's whiskers and surround objects as they float across the pages--a signal to readers that something truly alien is afoot. Smart page-turns and high-impact double-page spreads enhance the already clever dual narratives of a unique lost-pet story.
Reviewer: Patrick Gall | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2020

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