(2) K-3 Thirteen members of the Vasylenko family (a biracial family with each child named for a month of the year plus Mama Mariana and Papa Everest) love the outdoors. The fourteenth member, Oktober, "went on his adventures inside books, safe from the climby, slimy, grimy, wet, cold, and wild outside," and most especially from the personified, monstrous Wilderness. When he does encounter the Wilderness, adorable in an entertaining vertical gatefold, our hero learns to shift perspective. The tactile-seeming digital illustrations are motion-filled, round-edged, and cozily autumnal.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023