(2) PS Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. A mischievous crow spends his day getting into and out of trouble. He steals a button, bullies some songbirds, snatches a cat's kibble -- and he's just getting started. Each double-page spread is devoted to one of Crow's antics; taken all together, his busy day demonstrates a broad array of documented crow behaviors. Lord's text rollicks along with the avian mischief, variations on the titular phrase acting as a refrain. In one scene Crow hops on a peanut-jar lid and slides down a barn's roof: "He steps onto the lid and pushes off the edge. / Crick, crack, WHOA! / Slippery as snow! / Crow rides his sled to the edge of the roof / and flutter-flaps to the ground. Nice ride!" Paschkis's ink and gouache paintings incorporate her signature folk art–like details, embellishing flowers' petals and birds' feathers with stylized designs not found in nature. But not Crow -- rendered in an inky black with little-to-no individuation of feathers, his matte form draws the eye with its textural simplicity. Young listeners will notice that Crow's exploits lead him into ever greater danger, until he finds himself facing a massive hawk. Happily, one crow behavior is "mobbing" (the term is introduced in the back matter), and with the aid of his friends and family, Crow drives the hawk away before settling for the night. Clever, fun, and informative.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) K-3 Becker's (The Tree and the River, rev. 3/23) latest wordless fantasy takes readers to a post-apocalyptic future. Animals in a flooded zoo huddle on exposed bits of dry land; they are tended by an enormous yellow robot with wind turbines mounted on its back. Becker works in landscape orientation, with the robot's verticality dominating most compositions. Viewers get a sen is place beyond the endless water, the decay of the zoo buildings, and the utter absence of humans. But he does give them some semblance of hope. As the water rises, the robot fashions an ark of sorts. The animals file aboard, and they all set sail on a journey that gives Becker ample opportunity to explore the moods of his seascape. An encounter with another robot, this one blue and powered by solar panels, leads to sanctuary. Its hot air balloon accommodates both robots and all the animals, carrying them to an Edenic island, lush with vegetation and complete with waterfall and rainbow. Becker's characteristically virtuosic ink and watercolor paintings offer much for young readers to pore over and peer at, which may be enough for many. Others will find the story and the questions it poses lingering long after the book is closed.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(2) K-3 A dull day at the seaside yields to heart-pounding action. Danny's mother suggests that her mopey son take the dog for a walk on the beach, encouraging him to: "Keep your eyes open; you never know what you might see." In trademark Browne fashion ([Hide and Seek, rev. 11/18; What If...?, rev. 9/14), stable, symmetrical compositions echo Danny's mood as he and Scruff, a hairy yellow terrier mutt who embodies his name, pass glum beachside cottages to reach a bland, featureless beach beneath lowering gray clouds. Scruff's delight in a game of fetch lifts Danny's spirits, and the boy is further engaged when he spots faces and shapes in the beach rocks, studying them intently. Then he notices people waving at a far-off speck in the water who appears to be waving back. "Fetch!" he tells Scruff, and the dog obliges, swimming "on and on and on" in an edge-of-your-seat three-page sequence. Four half-page panels limit readers to Danny's foreshortened views of Scruff nearing the tiny, floundering figure and then slowly, slowly swimming back; the visual pacing is highly effective. A whale jumps joyfully in the background as Scruff leads the exhausted swimmer -- Danny's older brother! -- out of the surf against a now-bright-blue sky. Both a terribly high-stakes adventure and a celebration of the act of looking closely -- a favored theme of Browne's -- this day at the beach will have young readers riveted.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) 4-6 After "a bunch of water ruin[s] her life," all that our twelve-year-old protagonist wants to do is get back to normal. But what does normal look like for "Temple Baxter, flood victim"? It doesn't look like living in temporary quarters for weeks, switching schools, and constantly babysitting her three-year-old sister while her parents work and deal with the extensive repairs on their home. When her former private school friends ghost her, she's further unmoored. A natural organizer, Temple lands on the coping strategy of planning a fundraiser. With the help of neighborhood frenemy Jesse and new friend Asha, whose reframing of "flood victim" as "aquatic adventurer" helps Temple find her footing, she recruits local media, some big-name acts, and (just in time) a venue. With a plot that leans on the "plucky kids save the day with a big show" trope, this could read like a heartwarming feature story on the local news. But Faris elevates it with a keen sensitivity to Temple's emotional development as the tween comes to a maturing sense of her place in her family and community. Her desperate insistence that her parents level with her will strike chords of recognition in readers who are also teetering on the brink of agency. Sincere and heartfelt.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) YA Lo Simpson, twelve, is no Margaret Simon: she'd just as soon never get her period, and to her a bra is just "a medieval torture device." But her best friend, Jazz, suddenly wants to go bra shopping and sneers at Lo's Doctor Who cosplay. In fairly short order, Jazz is sitting at the "It Girls' table," leaving Lo bereft, pouring out her sadness and confusion in letters to the Doctor that she never sends. As sensitively as Florence depicts the dissolution of Lo and Jazz's friendship, this is more than a middle-school friend-breakup story. Lo quickly (some would say conveniently) discovers a table of fellow nerds who get her Doctor Who references and give her a new community and new confidence. When, after an excruciating sex-ed session capped by a mass condom handout, some boys target the It Girls with condom-balloons, innuendo, and bra-snapping, Lo draws on lessons about consent from her lawyer mother and fights back -- just the first skirmish in her "revolution." The many references to Doctor Who risk confounding readers unfamiliar with the BBC classic, but Lo comes across as a genuine fan, and the Doctor is an important factor in her growth. Lo's metamorphosis from "friendless loser" to a "new, badass version of herself" is swift but rewarding; readers get enough of Lo's interiority to believe her journey. Breezy and bracing.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) PS Illustrated by Erin Stead. Big Bear and Little Bear enjoy a summer idyll. It starts with a joyous declaration from Big Bear -- "I'm just in the mood for fishing" -- that [cf2just encapsulates a child's immersive enthusiasm. The two bears get dressed, find their poles, bake blueberry scones (of course; as Big Bear observes, "Fishermen need nice, warm blueberry scones"), and pack a storybook. These preparations traverse several beautifully orchestrated page-turns, each new necessity building listeners' anticipation. Big Bear's warm confidence coaxes Little Bear past some apprehension at the dock; in the boat at last, they "dip their poles" and wait, nibbling scones and reading stories until a fish finally appears, then swims away, leaving Big Bear and Little Bear to retreat contentedly to their hammock. Stead's delicate pencil and watercolor paintings depict beguiling details -- Big Bear's bunny slippers, the honeybees on the wallpaper, the echinacea in bloom -- without ever distracting from the total delight these bears have in each other. In their gently hairy bulk and the tender tilts of their heads, they recall Sendak's Little Bear and his mother. The text is equally gentle in its phrasing. Dialogue is set in italics rather than enclosed in quotation marks; pre-readers may not notice, but the unusual typographical choice will draw the attention of adults and older children to the warm, brown letters and the creamy negative space. It's hard to imagine a nicer day than this.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Matthew Cordell. A mouse with nautical aspirations realizes her dream. Wee Mabel gazes with longing at the cunning model ship fashioned by the man who lives in the lakeside cabin where she makes her home. It is the man's "prized possession," the product of many months of painstaking labor; he is so possessive that he won't even let the boy who lives with him touch it. Then one blustery night the cabin door is blown open and Mabel gets her chance. Using a mouse-sized block and tackle and some tiny logs as rollers, she lowers the boat and pushes it into the water to sail it all night long. When the man panics at the ship's loss but then sees it under sail with Mabel at the helm, man, boy, and mouse are united in awe and glee. Jonker taps into many children's delight in miniatures; they will thrill along with Mabel at her adventure. Cordell's scratchy ink and wash illustrations have a faded look, their sepias and pale blues giving the tale an old-timey feel that a gooseneck desk lamp only slightly diminishes. Mabel and the boy each wear a knitted watch cap, hers a pale red and his blue; when he lifts her in his hand at the end of the story, they smile at each other, fast friends. The illustrations mix full-bleed spreads with vignettes; the latter are framed in knotted rope. Sweet wish fulfillment.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) PS Brushy watercolors in sunny pastel tones illustrate a meditation on change in the form of a paean to the daylily. Raschka's big blue text (which looks hand-lettered) guides readers through the rhyme: "Monday's lily / blooms // for the baby. // Tuesday's lily blooms / for the cat. // Wednesday's lily blooms for Mommy. / Thursday's lily blooms // just like that." Each double-page spread zooms in on a lily in bloom; viewers will notice that yesterday's shriveled-up blossom droops from a different stem in nearly every composition, emphasizing the flowers' evanescence. Bugs, rabbits (one "the baby," the other "Mommy"), a gray tabby, a turtle, and other critters happily explore the greenery surrounding the lilies. In structure and rhythm, Raschka's verse recalls the nursery rhyme "Monday's Child," but its intent is far lighter (nobody is "full of woe" here) and less deterministic. "Sunday's lily blooms for her and him," we learn, and "Tomorrow's lily blooms for them"; readers are free to interpret this in multiple ways, including as an affirmation of gender diversity. Likewise, lines that address lilies' mortality do not dwell on death but touch on coming and going, and on lasting memories. Even as the verses' focus expands, the illustrations never lose their gentle sweetness, with the bugs, ants, and butterflies that inhabit this garden providing visual counterpoint. Whether read literally or metaphorically, this lilting ode gifts little ones a dollop of seasonal sunlight.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(1) PS Illustrated by Eric Rohmann. Rohmann returns to the natural history museum setting of his debut, Time Flies, but this outing is far cozier than that 1995 Caldecott Honor Book. It's just as fanciful, though. Penny, a brown-skinned girl with exuberant, textured hair, is visiting the museum on a school field trip. "In a quiet corner of the dinosaur exhibit, something astonishing happened." Penny notices the hatching of an adorable baby sauropod, who wags his tail at her, then scales the short glass barrier and follows her. A little bit behind Penny, the wee green reptile creeps between a stuffed grizzly's legs and later perches atop a model Earth, perspectives adding gentle humor. Their bond is cemented back in the dinosaur hall, where the little dino and Penny find themselves surrounded by massive skeletons. Fleming's understated text leaves space for Rohmann to let composition and body language do the talking: Pip is the only living dinosaur there, and he needs Penny. Fortunately, Penny understands, and she arrives at a brilliant plan that allows them to leave the museum and head "into the future...together." Young readers will be thoroughly charmed by the text's absolute faith in this future. Rohmann's loose strokes of black colored pencil, digitally colored, position his characters against uncomplicated, mostly white backgrounds that keep the focus on their emotional connection. Like Pip, this openhearted invitation to imagination is a keeper.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Michaela Goade. Generation-spanning Native creators deliver a lustrous celebration of generational memory. U.S. Poet Laureate Harjo (Mvskoke) wrote the poem that is this book's text in 1983; Caldecott ­Medalist Goade's (Tlingit) illustrations bring it to a child audience forty years later. "Remember the sky you were born under," urges Harjo, along with sun, moon, and stars. "Remember your birth, how your mother / struggled to give you form and breath. / You are evidence of her life, / and her mother's, and hers." Thus is the child reader explicitly linked to their human heritage, but Harjo's web of belonging extends beyond literal family to the earth, its flora and fauna, and its peoples. Goade (We Are Water Protectors, rev. 7/20; Berry Song, rev. 7/22) begins with creation, as white Raven delivers light in the form of swooshes of color. Her imagery is drawn from her own heritage, the unmistakable iconography of Pacific Northwest Coast art informing figures both terrestrial and celestial. (Her illustrator's note expands thoughtfully on her inclusion of these elements.) One of the many striking spreads depicts a child and an adult picking berries. The child's hand rests on the ground, and roots spread out in cross section below; across the gutter, a stylized hand provides a visual representation of growth and continuity, with motifs of fish skeletons and shells nourishing the soil and plants sprouting, etc. The teeming images thrillingly catch young viewers up as they swirl, circles emphasizing the cyclical nature of life. Remember," closes the text, and children will.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) PS Should Wuddles the sheep worry? Well, yes. A little yellow duckling who insists that the big, woolly sheep needn't be concerned is literally fleecing its barnmated--with the best intentions, however. Winter is coming, and the duckling needs a bit of wool for a scarf: "Mind if I take this, Wuddles? You have plenty of wool." Indeed Wuddles does have plenty; the sheep's placid face peeks out from a cloud of white. Next the duckling notices that the rooster needs a hat, the rabbit some earmuffs, the goat a pair of leg warmers, and so on. Readers will quickly catch on and enjoy guessing what the duckling decides to make for each successive­ animal. The text consists entirely of the busybody duckling's reassuring­ monologue­ as it sets out to ensure that the denizens of the barn are suitably equipped for winter. Wisp by wisp, the fleece is pulled from Wuddles's coat and fashioned into fluffy accessories--and the sheep's expression­ becomes more and more worried. Inevitably, the final pages display the result of the duckling's handiwork: wool-clad animals and a near-naked sheep. Never fear, Wuddles: a group hug will keep everyone warm. Though this barnyard outing­ lacks the sublime physical comedy of Judge's nearly wordless romps (such as Red Sled), her mastery of the expressive animal face is on full display. No worries here.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

(2) 4-6 Maurer shines a deserved spotlight on Margaret Hamilton, whose computer code for the Apollo program was integral to the success of the 1969 moonshot. Readers meet her as a child in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where she was brought up to be "curious, diligent, fearless, and a bit of a rebel"; her path eventually led to her joining the Instrumentation Lab at MIT. It was there that Hamilton helped write the code for the onboard ­computer, the Apollo ­Guidance Computer, that would ­control the astronauts' flight through space. ­Maurer draws on numerous ­personal interviews with Hamilton to reveal her character; she comes across as determined, brilliant, and confident yet self-effacing. Maurer mirrors her methodical ­competence, weaving into his account contextualizing information about early computer science and the technological innovations that made the Apollo program possible. He details the f­unctioning--and malfunctioning--of the AGC drive, the excitement of the test flights, and then Apollo 11 itself. Archival illustrations further enliven the narrative; a 1969 publicity photo of Hamilton steadying a tower of printed-out code is as effective now as it was then. A timeline, thorough source notes, an extensive bibliography, photo credits, and an index (unseen) round out this valuable addition to books about the space program.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) PS Illustrated by Sean Qualls. McGhee and Qualls present an exuberant celebration of dads and their babies. A recurring, multiracial cast of father-and-baby pairs enacts the fun, with McGhee's rhythmic, rhyming text backgrounding the mood: "Give me that tie / and I'll tie you a bow, // Give me your foot and I'll give you a toe. // Your drumming, my strumming. // Your beats. / My treats." In Qualls's illustrations, a baby plays with some neckties before their father fashions one into a bow for his little one; another one balances on their pop's feet while they dance together in the living room; yet another tot gleefully bashes pots and pans while their dad cobbles together a fruit cup. While there's nothing in the text to suggest that the narrative voice is male, all the parent figures present as such, and one sports a T-shirt that reads "SUPER DAD." Qualls's trademark bubbles and swirls decorate the pages, the mixed-media application--acrylic paint, colored-pencil, and collage--lending the compositions an improvisational DIY look that suits these dads' collective aspiration for their babies: "Wherever you are and whoever you'll be / just know that you're already perfect for me. // My baby, oh baby, oh baby, just...BE." In a market where the mother-child bond is still more prominently featured than that between fathers and their children, this bouncy outing, while not exactly unique, feels fresh.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) 4-6 Prehistoric rock art can be found all over the globe, forming what Salyer terms our ancestory. She doesn't belabor the portmanteau but instead invites readers to wonder at the ancient artists whose lives "were filled with difficulties and danger" yet "took the time to create." Mixed-media illustrations often mimic lithography as they depict humans both modern and ancient as well as the cave art at the center of the book. Salyer carefully emphasizes that the art emerges from many different times and many ancient cultures, one spread depicting samples found in modern-day Namibia, Australia, India, Finland, and more, made between three hundred and seventeen hundred years ago. She covers materials used in the art's creation, its fragility, and its beauty, speculating as to its purposes and uses at the time. Archaeologists study the art, and "sometimes people who are part of local Indigenous communities still have distant familiarity" with it. (The fact that some archaeologists are also Indigenous goes unspoken, alas.) Extensive back matter buttresses the text, with a glossary, timeline, note, map, resources, and capsule story of the caves at Lascaux. Those caves form the book's centerpiece, a breathtaking double gatefold that depicts their discovery, small human figures silhouetted against the soaring cave walls, illuminated by lantern light. An effective, efficient celebration of the human need to tell stories through art.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(1) K-3 Art for Good series. Thoughtful book design makes a perfect container for this series entry. On heavy stock pages, Saturno and Di Cristofaro introduce young readers to a Japanese architect whose preferred medium is paper. Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban has made a name for himself with his paper-tube constructions used in disaster-relief efforts, including temporary housing and such community buildings as schools and churches. Saturno uses an interactive structure to lead readers into the subject; an offstage narrator encourages a skeptical child to imagine a "house made entirely of paper and cardboard. A house you could live in." The child, rendered with angular, modernist flair and accompanied by an equally hyper-stylized cat, expostulates, "No way! That would be impossible!" But the narrator beguiles the child with the "very sturdy" paper tubes Ban uses as "bricks," while Di Cristofaro evokes the tensile strength of his innovative structures with intricate cut-paper renderings in minimalist compositions. An inserted twelve-page booklet made of brown paper contains photographs of Ban's disaster-relief projects and paragraphs of text describing them; bound in, it is smaller than the surrounding book yet integrated by its medium. A Q&A with the architect, a timeline of his life, and an exhortation to child readers "to think, to be creative, and to help" close the offering. It's all bound in a sturdy cardboard case that pays homage to Ban's work. This striking presentation is an effective invitation to children to join Ban in using creativity to solve big problems.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) 4-6 Wait, Paul Bunyan wasn't born in Maine and cradled in the Bay of Fundy before making his way to Minnesota's north woods with Babe, his blue ox? It turns out his legend was promulgated in a Red River Lumber Company marketing campaign as a way to promote both the timber industry and, according to an introduction by Lee Francis IV (Pueblo of Laguna), "the common colonial theme of settling various lands and regions that once belonged to Indigenous peoples to make way for 'American civilization.'" This caution paves the way for the graphic-format tale, which imagines a train making its way through Minnesota's winter in 1914, stopped in its tracks by an accident up ahead. The passengers while away the time with stories. Red River's advertising manager delights many with his tales of Paul Bunyan (who looks, in the scratchy ink-and-watercolor panels, a lot like the storyteller in buffalo plaid). The yarns have some detractors, who make note of the clear-cut forests and the displacement of Native peoples--and Van Sciver gives them the last word, effectively complicating the folk-her narrative for both characters and readers. The book concludes with essays by Indigenous contributors Deondre Smiles (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe) and the book's coauthor and illustrator Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota), and a map of the region from a Native perspective. It's a busy, thoughtful presentation that will leave readers with much to ponder about the making of this strand of the American mythos.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) PS Illustrated by Molly Idle & Juana Martinez-Neal. It's all about the body language in this enjoyable collaboration. Idle (Flora and the Flamingo, rev. 7/13; Witch Hazel, rev. 9/22) and Martinez-Neal (Alma and How She Got Her Name, rev. 5/18; Fry Bread, rev. 11/19) apply their signature styles to two children: a light-skinned child with a blond kewpie cut and a child with darker skin and a thatch of straight black hair. They stand on either side of a thick tree trunk that bisects the double-page spread, backs to each other and arms crossed. Children and tree are both rendered in soft graphite on creamy stock; the only colors are a teal oval that hovers over Idle's kid and a similar yellow one over Martinez-Neal's. What puts them at odds is a mystery, but Fogliano's (My Best Friend, rev. 3/20) lilting first line will have young readers speculating: "i really don't care what you think of my hair / or my eyes or my toes or my nose." As the text trots along, the children first look at each other, then engage in parallel play. They share their separate snacks, smiling, as their respective ovals begin to overlap. Meanwhile, the text never breaks from its rhythm as it modulates from what the characters don't care about to what they do, including sharing, playing fair, and each other's feelings: "i really do care about all of that stuff / i really do care a lot." Here the children embrace on a tire swing, together on the page with friendship now assured. Thoroughly charming notes from each illustrator close this winning outing.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2022

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Chris Turnham. Readers meet poet and conservationist William Stanley Merwin (1927–2019) as a child, reading a book in his clover-and-dandelion-studded backyard. Alas, that's the closest he can get to the "wild places" he loves, as his family lives in a town "where the wild parts had been straightened out." This is depicted by Turnham as an oppressive grid, with smoke issuing from automobiles, chimneys of identical row houses, and a factory. Summertimes, though, are spent in the woods, "where trees grew where their seeds had fallen." As a young man, Stanley realizes "writing poetry was like visiting a wild place," but he still yearns to live among nature and moves to Hawaii. There he finds a plot of land on Maui that's been "wounded" by chemicals--and that he heals over decades until it is a thriving wilderness. Fountain uses a spare text that emphasizes Merwin's role of conservationist over that of poet (she does append one poem following her author's note). The metaphor of "unstraightening" is effective, and the message that "poisoned" land can be healed with care and time is a bracing one. Turnham's crisp illustrations are somewhat more effective for the "straightened-out" scenes than for Merwin's wilderness, where muted tones fail to capture true lushness, but his palm trees do spread out in profusion.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2022

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Melissa Sweet. Largely forgotten today, American writer Celia Laighton Thaxter enjoyed a significant literary career in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Both her life and her writing revolved around Maine's Appledore Island, and it is here that this picture-book biography takes root. Thaxter comes alive as a gardener from her earliest years (when the family lived on White Island), coaxing blooms to life amid the rocks, with vivid colors punctuating Root and Schmidt's narrative: "Pink morning glories opened to the sun, and Celia found green moss and purple starfish in rocky pools." Sweet's illustrations follow the text's lead, depicting the main character ankle-deep in a tide pool surrounded by bright, stylized flowers in purples, pinks, oranges, and reds. Both Celia and the island backdrop are dressed in muted gray-greens, causing the colors to pop all the more. Readers learn that Celia's lighthouse-keeper father moved the family to Appledore Island and built a hotel where "artists and writers [came] to stay"; after she married and moved to the mainland, that network f­acilitated her career. Hand-lettered excerpts of Thaxter's writings--both poetry and prose--frequently appear in the margins, artfully commenting on the narrative. The telling is elliptical; readers who wonder at the abrupt disappearance of Thaxter's husband must comb through the two-page timeline, printed in a tiny font, to learn of their estrangement. But Thaxter's devotion to her titular garden shines bright. Also appended are a biographical note and a bibliography.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2022

(2) "Look! The Moon!" a child exclaims. "Should we go out to say hello?" Child and caretaker bundle up and head out into the snowy night to greet it; they go back inside promising that "we'll see you again another night." But just a few nights later, the child observes with dismay that "part of it is gone!" The adult reassuringly says that the moon is "just hiding its face a little" and that in two weeks' time it will even look as though it's gone altogether: "We call that the New Moon." Turk's textured paintings--done in marbled inks and gouache--with their varied compositions maintain visual interest in this mostly dark, monochromatic landscape. The bright colors of the two moon-watchers' winter coats grow muted as the orb wanes, and warm interiors make for a sharp contrast to the silvered black and blue exteriors. When the pair witnesses the new moon, the child is ready for its apparent absence--and for the glorious show of stars now visible, twinkling against a dark sky. There is no attempt at a scientific explanation for what happens, just a conversation between adult and child that gently personifies the moon without quite anthropomorphizing it. A final glimpse of the waxing crescent moon provides a satisfying conclusion.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2022