Stylin'! Little Owl's Orange Scarf by Tatyana Feeney

LITTLE OWL LOVED SURPRISES.

When Little Owl comes home from riding his scooter through the park, his mommy has a surprise--a handknit, lovingly made, nice warm scarf!

HE DIDN'T LOVE THE ORANGE SCARF.

IT WAS ITCHY.

IT WAS TOO LONG.

IT WAS TOO ORANGE.

Mommy loves him in that scarf. She loves the idea of keeping him nice and warm when he playing outside.

Little Owl hates that scarf. It trails behind him and tangles on everything.  It scratches his neck. And besides, it's so... ORANGE!   Little Owl decides that the kindest thing he can do is to LOSE the thing. Accidentally, of course. He tries slipping it into a mailing box being shipped off to Peru, where they surely must need orange scarfs worse than he does. Mommy notices. Then he surreptitiously leaves it behind on his field trip to the zoo.

Is Mommy mad? No. In fact, she seems to have sleuthed out the motive behind the mystery of the missing scarf.

"THIS TIME WE WILL MAKE IT TOGETHER," SHE SAYS.

And this time Little Owl picks out a nice, soft (non-itchy) yarn in a nice, cool shade of aqua, and this time Mommy makes it just the right length to keep him warm, in Tatyana Feeney's brand-new Little Owl's Orange Scarf (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), a story which parallels the plot of Gene Zion's classic No Roses for Harry! Feeney's charming faux naif illustrations using blackline drawings with astutely placed color are totally unlike Zion's comic style, but sharp kids will pick up the common elements of these two well-knit tales. Pair these yarns of lovingly made but unlovable knit goods with two similar stories that'll have little listeners in stitches!