(3) K-3 Illustrated by Carll Cneut. Spirited verse tells of ten piglets drawn outside by the moonlight to frolic the night away. Cneut's acrylic illustrations are striking; the pale piglets and the glowing moon against a backdrop of deep, brilliant blues and black lend an eerie energy to the midnight romp. The straight-faced piglets, dressed in old-timey PJs, recall Victorian-era picture book animals.

Reviewer: Sethany Rancier Alongi

(2) 4-6 Eleven-year-old Phoebe and her mother are homeless, and their possessions are collected in a single suitcase. When Phoebe loses the suitcase, Mama bottoms out emotionally and sends Phoebe to live with her grandmother at Full Moon Lake, where she fears Mama has abandoned her. Johnson's spare prose, which appears as verse, is poetic without straining. Its lyricism makes more bearable this novel's many heartbreaks.

Reviewer: Nell Beram | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2003