Miss Lina's Ballerinas and the Wicked Wish by Grace Maccarone

ONE SUNNY DAY, A GUEST CAME TO VIEW

MISS LINA'S TEN DANCERS PLIE' AND TENDU.

MISS LINA ANNOUNCED, "THIS IS MISTER BRISE'.

HE'LL WATCH YOU TAKE CLASS," SHE EXPLAINED, AND HE MAY

INVITE YOU TO DANCE WITH THE CITY BALLET."

Miss Lina's dancers--Christina, Edwina, Sabrina, Justina, Katrina, Bettina, Marina, Regina, Nina, and Tony Farina--are tres excites when they are observed by Mr. Brise', knowing that this is an audition for the big performance of "Sleeping Beauty." But, alas, Regina loses her balance in the line, causing a domino effect among the dancers, ending with their newest member, Tony, falling onto the floor. It is only one misstep, but it means that, while the rest of the class are chosen to dance la valse with garlands of roses in the grand wedding procession, Regina and Tony must portray the giant rats who pull Beauty's carriage to the wedding.

Tony is totally down with performing the part of a rat, but Regina feels embarrassed with her fall from grace. She can't help wishing, just a little bit, that one of the waltzing girls will fall ill so that she can step in and claim her rightful place with the rest of Miss Lina's ballerinas. She even dreams of herself, waltzing gracefully, garlanded with beautiful roses, to the applause of the glittering opening night audience.

"Be careful what you wish for--because you might get it" is the well-trod theme of Grace Maccarone's and Christine Davenier's third ballet tale, Miss Lina's Ballerinas and the Wicked Wish (Feiwel & Friends, 2012), because Regina finds herself suddenly called on to replace Sabrina, who falls very ill:

SHE LEARNED SABRINA HAD THE FLU.

SABRINA'S DANCE WAS HARD TO DO--

PAS DE BASQUE AND SOUTENU!

And that's just the beginning, as one misfortune after another occurs. Nina and Martina, too, fall ill, and Edwina sprains an ankle, followed by a cascade of maladies and mishaps among the class, and Regina despairs that she can learn everyone's routine in time for the performance. Her wicked wish has come back to haunt her and she has even come to rue the scent of roses!

But the show must go on, as Regina repents her wicked wish in this sequel in the careers of Miss Lina's little corps de ballet, as the recovered ballerinas toe the mark on opening night in another delightfully brava pas de deux by this talented author and illustrator duo.

For young ballet fans the author thoughtfully appends a synopsis of the Sleeping Beauty ballet and a glossary of ballet terms.

Accept No Substitutes! Silverlicious by Victoria Kann

DEAR TOOTH FAIRY,

TODAY MY SWEET TOOTH CAME OUT. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

COULD YOU PLEASE SEND ME SOMETHING SWEET TO EAT UNTIL A NEW TOOTH COMES IN?

LOVE,
PINKALICIOUS

When Pinkalicious loses her first baby tooth in the cookie she swipes from her brother Peter, she figures that that tooth must have been her sweet tooth. Suddenly nothing sweet tastes yummy. But Pinkie is never one to let grass grow under her feet. Snatching up her pinktastic pen and pinktastic stationery, she pops off a missive to the Tooth Fairy asking for help. Pinkalicious makes plans to stay awake all night and score a snapshot of the famous fairy.

But when her pink alarm clock rings "P-I-I-I-I-N-K!" the next morning, she wakes to find she's missed her midnight visitor. Her bedroom is decorated with hearts and arrows, with roses and Valentine garlands everywhere, and the note she finds is NOT from the Tooth Fairy. It seems that that eminent emissary has been called away to an dental emergency in New Zealand and has sent a sub, Carlos Cupid. Carlos has left some cinnamon hearts, but when she tastes them, they're sizzling, not sweet. Pinkalicious is perplexed.

Undaunted, she writes another note, politely thanking Carlos for the candy, but firmly requesting that she get a visit from the No. 1 dental delegate. But the next morning her room is eggs-travagantly elegant with Easter baskets, Easter eggs, baby chicks, chains of tulips, with a personal note from the Tooth Fairy's second stand-in. "Eggs-cuse me," Edgar Easter Bunny writes, pointing out that he's been eggs-tracted from his vacation in Egguador to fill in for the Tooth Fairy, called to other duties, and that he hopes she enjoys the jelly beans he's left for her to try.

But those jelly beans are eggs-zactly not what Pinkalicious wants. They taste terrible, and the persnickety Pinkie pens another piece of correspondence, demanding for a visit from the real deal. But the next morning, she awakens, wearing a crown of peppermint lollies, to a new scene. Her room has been decked with boughs of holly, garlands of greenery, a Yule tree, a plentitude of peppermint sticks, and a note signed by Elf #351, proposing that she give his peppermints a taste test.

Elf #351's peppermints don't pass muster; to Pinkalicious they taste like dried toothpaste. "GROSS!" she cries, stamping her foot angrily. Quickly she scribbles off a new note to her personal fairy, Tootheetina, asking her to restore her taste buds. But the next morning she finds nothing in her room but some silver coins and a note:

DEAR PINKALICIOUS,

SWEETNESS COMES FROM THE INSIDE.

WHEN YOU ARE SWEET, THE WORLD AND ALL THE DELICIOUS THINGS IN IT WILL BE SWEET TO YOU!

LOVE, TOOTHEETINA

P.S. DON'T FORGET TO BRUSH AND FLOSS AFTER EACH MEAL!

Sweets for the sweet is the message of New York Times best-selling author Victoria Kann's brand-new Silverlicious (Pinkalicious) (Harper, 2011). Tootheetina's silver-wrapped chocolates taste just fine as soon as our pastel protagonist shakes her mean mood and makes up for her cookie theft by sharing with her little brother. Sweetness returns to her life, and for the moment silver is the new color du jour!

An all-purpose homage to fantasy holiday characters, this clever story will doubtless pass the taste test for those legions of Pinkalicious fans who wait eagerly for each new book.

"A Cautionary Tale:" Once Upon a Twice by Denise Doyen

Once upon a twice,
In the middle of the nice,
The moon was on the rise,
and Mice were scoutaprowl.

They runtunnel through the riddle--
Secret ruts laid in betwiddle.
But one mousling jams the middle
Whilst he goofiddles, by the hole.

In the midst of a moonlit midnight, shepherded by eldermice, a troop sets forth to forage in the inky rice paddies of a southern night. Despite the greybeards' warnings not to loiter or linger outside their secret deep-worn pathways, one youngling, Jam Boy, stays and stops the line to smell the roses and sniff the scents about him.

"Do not disturb the bugs of June,"
The elder mouncelors whispercroon.

"Dangers lurk in the lettuce.
Twixt the celery, stalkers get us!
Open moonlight is a menace."

But despite warnings, this "riskrascal" falls behind and, once alone, yields to the lure of tempting tastes and adventures just ahead in the blue-purple dark. Beside a pond he stops, bedazzled by the jeweled beetles' wings and diamond dewdrops, as unseen "half-submerged, a slender queen/esses 'cross the pond unseen." The snake's attack comes swiftly and with a "squeak-eek! and a splash, Jam and the snake vanish below the water.

Alas! Silence descends like mud a-deep
On the creatures round the beach.

"Mouse years" pass, and then we see Jam, "wiser, whiskers now grown long" a fortunate survivor who now warns the young mouselings about him:

"When the moon is full awake,
she's the ally of the snake.
You wanderyonder by the lake?
Make no mistake...you're in a jam!
The world afield is dangerouse,
Foraging is--for a mouse--
A nightly duel and joust.
The House of Mice has many mourned.
Be forewarned!"

Breathtakingly detailed illustrations, in Barry Moser's rich deep blue, black, and ochre palette, and poetic language, sparked with evocative, playful neologisms, from author Denise Doyen make their Once Upon a Twice (Picture Book) (Random House, 2009), a simple prodigal mouse tale, into an enthralling picture book experience. As Kirkus Review states, "This slight cautionary tale is undeniably arrayed in a gorgeous brocade, woven of fresh, inventive wordplay and masterful illustrations."

Watch for this one at winter award time.