With a charming and resourceful mouse as a guide, Alice Schertle (the Little Blue Truck series) and Stephanie Yue (the Guinea Pig Pet Shop Private Eye series) lead readers through the seasons.
A lush landscape with a small mound of dandelions in the foreground appears with the opening lines: "Way out in the wide world/ there is a meadow./ in the middle of the meadow,/ under a clump of dandelions,/ there is a hole." The view then telescopes down to the hole's opening and the critter that lives within: "Such a little mouse,/ with his smart gray coat,/ with his ears pink as petals,/ with three twitchety whiskers on each side of his nose." Yue zooms in on the fellow's features in four windowpane close-ups. She visually charts the changes of each season to the meadow and the mouse's routine, while Schertle returns to the refrain: "Such a little mouse./ Off he goes into the wide world." In spring, "he watches the busy bees on the clover blossoms." A cutaway view depicts the mouse's cozy three-room home (kitchen, bedroom and storeroom) as he tucks away food supplies, preparing for the day when the autumn wind and the ants whisper, "Winter is coming." As snow covers the meadow, Shue's series of vignettes reveal the mouse busy in his kitchen, making use of the ingredients he's collected in warmer seasons.
Children will appreciate the thoughtful details such as a bed made from a hotpad and matchboxes that support the mouse's bookshelf, and identify with the little mouse who accomplishes big things. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness