Oliver Jeffers's (Lost and Found) humorous and touching tale stars a child, Wilfred, who claims ownership of a moose that's its own master. Yet the boy finds a way to make the friendship work.
Blond-haired Wilfred, sporting bow tie and suspenders, makes a kind of "ta-da" gesture toward a four-legged spindly-legged moose with large antlers: "Wilfred owned a moose." Standing on a chair, the boy attaches a tag labeled "Marcel" on the furry fellow's right antler. Wilfred explains "the rules of how to be a good pet," but Marcel rarely follows them. Since the moose likes to go his own way and the boy has a poor sense of direction, he takes a ball of blue string to find his way back, which trails off the sides of the pages.
Jeffers creates thought balloons to depict the boy's fantasy of a tuxedo-clad moose serving drinks from a tray, and the two riding together over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The author-artist superimposes images of his boy and moose heroes atop stunning landscapes of the Grand Tetons, Mt. Hood and Wyoming's Jackson Lake. On one particularly long walk, Wilfred makes "a terrible discovery.... Someone else thought she owned the moose." When a dejected Wilfred rushes home to sulk and gets tangled in his blue string, who comes along to save him? Marcel.
Children will delight in detecting more than Wilfred does about the ways of animals in the wild, and will enjoy the book's gentle lesson that true friendship involves give and take. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness