March Winds Do Blow! Kite Day by Will Hillenbrand

BEAR LOOKED AT THE SKY.
COULD IT BE?

WHIFF WHIFF WHIFF!

HE SMILED AND THEN SHOUTED
"KITE DAY!"

Bear huffs all the way home to wake up his snoozy friend Mole and announce that March is blowing up a breeze. Time to make and fly a kite!

Best buddies Bear and Mole assemble their materials and build themselves a bright yellow kite with a jaunty varicolored tail and soon set it aloft on the breeze.

UP UP UP!

But what goes up must come down, whether it's the vapor in the water cycle or a yellow kite, and before the buddies notice, the sky clouds up and soon a spring shower is bringing their creation down down, down with the raindrops!

Spirits dampened along with their fur, the two friends trudge along the trajectory of that lovely kite, finding it alas! mangled and tangled in a tree.

Another kite-in-tree tragedy?

Well, not for author-illustrator Will Hillenbrand, in his latest spring creation, A Kite Day (Bear and Mole) (Bear and Mole Story) (Holiday House, 2012), because one critter's aerial delight is another's impromptu shelter. The two buddies find their short-lived kite providing a handy tarpaulin over a mother bird and her new-hatched babes, now cozy in their dry and comfy nest, and all's well that ends well for all.

BEAR AND MOLE SMILED.

Will Hillenbrand's latest story has a visual and emotional appeal that will be very satisfying to the storytime set, especially paired with last year's March offering about Bear and Mole, Spring Is Here!