A Message In A Bottle: The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles by Michelle Cuevas

The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles lived alone on a high spot with only one tree for shade.

He always kept an eye on the waves, watching for a glint of glass.

He had a job of utmost importance.

The shabby, worn old beachcomber, reeking of seaweed and perpetual damp. is the postman of the sea. As he sees his job, it is crucial that any message found in a sea-tossed bottle be delivered to its intended destination. Delivery is not easy. But still he is steadfast in his duty, searching till his compass grows rusty.

Sometimes the messages were old, crunchy, like leaves in the fall, written by a quill dipped in sadness.

But the old beachcomber, whose real name has long since been forgotten, loves his work, because sometimes the messages make people happy. He wonders if he will ever find a message addressed to himself so that he might be glad, too. But who would send him a message?

Each time a part of him hoped to to see his name winking at the top of a page. But then he remembered he had no name and no friends.

Then one day the old sea scrounger finds a message with no intended recipient and no signature, just an open invitation to a party at the village seaport at eventide. It ends...

"Will you come, please?"

He asks about the village. Does anyone know anything about the sender, he asks the baker and a sailor and a resting seagull. The chocolate seller and a girl in a green dress and everyone deny sending the message, but they all agree they would love to dance at such a party. Disappointed that he cannot find anyone to claim the invitation, he decides to go to the appointed place and time of the party and if the sender is there, to make his apologies for failing to deliver.

And when the man arrives at the seaport at sunset, he finds the place decorated in seaweed garlands studded with starfish, and bright candles floating in seashells. The baker is there with a huge cake, and it seems the whole village is there also, even a band, and he himself dances to the music with a girl in green.

It seems that everyone, like he himself, was waiting for an invitation.

In her little parable of loneliness and friendship found, Michelle Cuevas' new The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles (Dial Books, 2016) is as misty and lovely a tale as her seaside setting. The author takes the idea of the message in a bottle and its intriguing mystery as a symbol for the very human desire to make contact with each other, and the lonely figure of the nameless postman of the sea trying to make that human connection is one that people of any age will understand. Cuervas' narrative language is as lyrical as any poem, and Caldecott Award-winning artist Erin Stead sets the mood magically, with wispy, fog-ridden, and evocative images of seaside flotsam and salty citizens that fit the premise perfectly. "A perfect pairing of text and art. Share this quiet story with your wishers and dreamers," says School Library Journal.

I Can't Believe It Ate the Whole Thing! This Book Just Ate My Dog by Richard Byrne

BELLA WAS TAKING HER DOG FOR A STROLL ACROSS THE PAGE.

SOMETHING VERY ODD HAPPENED.

Indeed! The front end of Bella's enormous shaggy dog disappears right into the book's gutter. A surprised Bella is left holding a taut leash, watching his hindquarters also vanish.

Just then Her friend Ben comes along, with a "What's up?"

"THIS BOOK JUST ATE MY DOG!" BELLA SAYS.

Bravely, Ben plunges into the book's gutter and vanishes, too!

But help is on the way. The Dog Rescue Truck speeds in the breech and... disappears inside the book's greedy gutter, too, quickly followed by a police car, an EMR truck, and a firetruck.

Bella watches the first responders vanish one by one. This is ridiculous!

I'LL JUST HAVE TO SORT THIS OUT MYSELF," SAYS BELLA.

Bella heads into the gutter resolutely, and for a moment all is quiet. Then from inside, a note sails out of the book and lands on the sidewalk.

Dear Reader,

It would be lovely if you could kindly help us. PLEASE turn this Book on its side and SHAKE...

--Bella

And with a page turn and a bookish BURP, the vanished Ben, rescue vehicles, and even Bella's dog are, er, re-issued from the book and rearrange themselves, with a few oddities, in front of Bella, in Richard Byrne's new tale, This book just ate my dog! (Henry Holt, 2014). Using some of the interactive techniques pioneered recently by Herve' Tullet's bestsellers, Press Here and Mix It Up! and even Mo Willems' We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book), in April Fool's Day style Byrne likewise does away with the "fourth wall" and invites the reader into the story, if not to be a visible character, to be a mover and and shaker in the plot! Byrne's illustrations of the primly turned-out Bella and her improbably humongous dog are drawn as deceptively conventional cartoon characters, but his story invites young readers right into story as invisible hands. Kids will find this a book they have to share immediately with someone else just to let them in on the joke.

Read this one with B. J. Novak's equally iconoclastic (biblioclastic?) best-seller, The Book with No Pictures for some mind-stretching experiences with just what can happen within the covers of the modern picture book when author decide to shake things up.

Shell Game! Marcel the Shell: The Most Surprised I've Ever Been by Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate

THIS IS ME, MARCEL!

ONE THING ABOUT A NEW DAY--YOU ABSOLUTELY NEVER KNOW WHERE IT IS GOING TO GO.

Marcel the Shell (With Shoes On) is enjoying the morning by taking a stroll across a blanket with his surrogate dog Alan (a piece of lint). It's not his bed. His bed is a slice of bread. But this bed has a fluffy blanket, which somehow gets Marcel lost in musing about how much he loves cake.

And then someone comes in to make up the bed. Not noticing tiny Marcel and the likewise fluffy Alan, she lifts the blanket and gives it a shake.

I AM SAILING THROUGH THE COOL MORNING AIR 2000 CENTIMETERS OFF THE GROUND.

EVERYTHING LOOKED SO SMALL. I COULD SEE THE WHOLE RUG AND ALL OF ITS FAR-FLUNG FRINGES.

Marcel's world view is changed in a moment. He can see Nana Shell, sleeping in her fancy French bread bed. He looks down on the baby in his crib and ponders what it means.

I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY PUT HIM IN JAIL.

Then Marcel feels that he's reached the apogee of his trajectory in space.

I FELT WEIGHTLESS. I THOUGHT ABOUT ASTRONAUTS.

But what goes up must come down, as so does Marcel, in a most surprising touchdown.

SPLAT!

And Marcel the Shell makes a most propitious soft landing in the fluffy frosting of a birthday cake, in Jenny Slate's and Dean Fleischer-Camp's second Marcel story, Marcel the Shell: The Most Surprised I've Ever Been (Razor Bill, 2014). Marcel is an ironic, solipsistic shell. The world is huge and mostly unknown, but Marcel's naively self-centered but philosophical take on the world is a unique narration, and Fleischer-Dean's unusual drawings, making full use of the chance for a mollusk-eye-view of Marcel's known world from space, set this one off with just the right touch of sly irony. Best read with Slate's and Fleischer-Camp's first book, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On: Things About Me (See review here).

"Visually clever and verbally unusual," says Kirkus.

For an animated view of Marcel's one-of-a-kind voice, watch Marcel's gone-viral introductory film here, where can also see Marcel and his creators interviewed by the like of Brian Williams and Conan O'Brien.

Zen in the Sands of Time: How Roland Rolls by Jim Carrey

SOMEWHERE...

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DEEP BLUE SEA,

A WAVE NAMED ROLAND CAME TO BE.

Roland first sees the light of day as a wee ripple, but as his sort do, he begins to build, and before you know it, Roland is rolling along as a swell (sorry 'bout that!) wave.

Roland rolls across the surface with big dreams and an inchoate longing for a friend. Dolphins rise and surf along on his occasional crest, but then sink beneath the sea. Passing whales breach briefly and soon slip away among the waves with only a passing comradely glance. Sea birds dive and surface around him, but sadly, their ticklish feathered friendship is flighty and fleeting, too. Roland longs for something more.

And then he meets his soul mate, a lovely wave named Shimmer, whose glimmer is beguiling and who is ready to roll along with Roland wherever time and tide take them.

But there's the rub! Roland soon learns that his ocean is not all of what there is. Somewhere there's land, and where there's land, there's a beach, and where there's a beach, waves must break. And then,... WHAT?

The sizable sales of actor Jim Carrey's new How Roland Rolls (Some Kind of Garden Media, 2013) seem to be saying, with its Zen-like premise, that primary schoolers can grasp the concept of the demise of the individual as he merges with the universal mind, a religious philosophy of venerable standing:

WE'RE NOT LITTLE WAVES.

WE'RE THE BIG WIDE OCEAN!

IN ALL OF THE RIVERS....

IN ALL OF THE STREAMS...

THE PUDDLES, THE POOLS, AND MOM'S IRON WHEN IT STEAMS.

It's not Miss Nelson's water cycle lesson, for sure.

Celebrity literary ventures tends to be a mixed lot at best. The "professional" reviewers seem to have opted out of reviewing this one, although Carrey's co-celebrities have not shared that reticence. Indeed the picture book format  seems a strange vehicle for a parable drawn from Buddhist belief, (although it can be said to work just as well as a lesson on that ever-popular science subject, the water cycle.)  Rob Nason's artwork is pleasant and engaging, doing what it can to give a wave a unique personality, a dicey proposition at best, given Roland's changeable persona. Average kids may find this one a bit bemusing, and it's definitely not for everyone, but some may find the concept novel and intriguing.

Pair this one with some of Jon Muth's Zen stories, such as his Caldecott-winning Zen Shorts (Caldecott Honor Book).

Hirsute Heir? Mustache Baby by Bridget Heos

When  Billy is born, he parents get quite a surprise.

Baby Billy has an impressive mustache.

His parents are puzzled at what all this means.

"IT DEPENDS," THE NURSE SAYS.

"YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE WHETHER IT'S A GOOD-GUY MUSTACHE OR A BAD-GUY MUSTACHE."

At first, as Billy and his mustache grow to toddlerhood, it looks like a good-guy mustache--a lawman's crisp little cookie duster, suitable for a sheriff who rounds up the bad guys!

But soon that mustache begins to sprout and grow and curl into a maleficent-looking mustachio--a bad-guy mustache for sure.  It's a disrespectful  desperado's soup-strainer of a mustache, and Billy's behavior goes down the tubes, too. He's a cat burglar (burgling the family kitty), a cereal-stealing felon who even robs toy trains and purloins a Tootsie getaway car, and finally Mom has to collar this malefactor and stick him in behind bars (in his crib).

But time in the slammer seems to do the trick, and Mom bails him out, explaining to Billy's appropriately annoyed big sister and brother...

"EVERYONE HAS A BAD-MUSTACHE DAY NOW AND THEN!"

And there's an unsuspected hairy resolution to this super-silly hirsute tale, in Bridget Heos' Mustache Baby (Houghton Mifflin Clarion, 2013), illustrated with super silliness by Joy Ang in delightful mixed media layouts. Ang's art extends the story ably, especially in depicting the unmentioned reactions of the hospital staff  and neighbors to Billy's lip fringe, and his harassed older siblings' reactions to Billy's terrible two capers.

Kirkus calls this one as a "...mix of Saturday-morning slapstick, dramatic comic-book angles and mustachioed babies. Occasional badness has never been so good."

Downfall! No Jumping on the Bed by Tedd Arnold

IN HIS ROOM ON THE TOP FLOOR OF A TALL APARTMENT BUILDING, WALTER WAS GETTING READY FOR BED.

HIS FATHER SAID, "IF I'VE TOLD YOU ONCE, I TOLD YOU A MILLION TIMES:

NO JUMPING ON THE BED.

SOMEDAY IT'S GOING TO CRASH RIGHT THROUGH THE FLOOR!"

HMMMPPHH! An order like that is practically a dare to a mischievous little boy, and when Walter hears thumps from upstairs, he knows it's his friend Delbert, jumping on his bed.

"IF DELBERT CAN JUMP ON HIS BED, SO CAN I!"

But Walter has pushed his luck once too often. It seems that Dad was right!

With an horrendous crack, Walter finds himself and his broken bed crashing through the floor, right into Miss Hattie's spaghetti. In a wild domino effect, the impact sends Walter and the astonished Miss Hattie, meatballs and all, through the floor and the ceiling of the Mr. Matty, watching TV, and in an ever-increasing calamity, the three go into freefall into Aunt Batty and Fatty Cat's cozy evening, Mr. Hanratty's painting project, and on top of Maestro Ferlinghatti's string quartet rehearsal.

His eyes closed in horror, Walter falls down into the sub-basement of the building, when...

HE LANDED ON SOMETHING SOFT.

HE OPENED HIS EYES. EVERYTHING WAS IN PLACE.

"WHEW!" THOUGHT WALTER.

Safe in his own intact bed, Walter settles back down for what he hopes is an uninterrupted, dreamless sleep this time, when suddenly he hears an ominous CREAK from the room above his, where Delbert, it seems, is still jumping on his bed.

In this re-illustrated 25th anniversary edition of Tedd Arnold's first book and first runaway hit, No Jumping on the Bed 25th Anniversary Edition (Dial Books, 2012), there's still a surprise ending to this cumulative cautionary tale about a fantastical bedtime adventure. It seems Delbert gets both his comeuppance and well-deserved downfall in this totally rib-tickling tale that has always been a guaranteed read-aloud killer diller, especially with little boys. I'll leave it to you to decide whether you prefer Arnold's new remix, with more exaggerated cartoon-style, digitally colorized illustrations, to those in his classic 1987 version, but the story remains solid bedtime or storytime fare full of chuckles and visual humor for primary readers.

Up A Tree! Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

IT ALL BEGAN... WHEN FLOYD'S KITE BECAME STUCK IN A TREE. HE TRIED PULLING AND SWINGING BUT IT WOULDN'T COME UNSTUCK.

THE TROUBLE REALLY BEGAN WHEN HE THREW HIS FAVORITE SHOE TO KNOCK THE KITE LOOSE.

AND THAT BECAME STUCK, TOO!

What's a guy to do? Well, he still has the other shoe, but when he hurls it into the offending tree, the other shoe doesn't drop.

It's stuck too.

Floyd is obviously not a kid who thinks outside the box. He pitches his cat Mitch at the stuff stuck in the tree.

CATS GET STUCK IN TREES, BUT THIS WAS GETTING RIDICULOUS.

Don't say you weren't warned. We can see where this one is going, as we say, as in short order Floyd borrows his friend's bike and a neighbor's ladder to toss at the tree, knowing full well that they need to be back in place posthaste before they're missed, but alas, they stick up there as well.

The situation escalates in the best "old lady who swallowed a fly" tradition, with the tree growing impossibly top-heavy with improbable missiles--Floyd's front door, the milkman (who definitely needs to get back to work) and an orangutan (who's got to have better things to do). The absurdity escalates as does the tree, soon filling up with a neighbor's house (complete with harried housewife), a firetruck and fireman, and a saw, which the reader fully expects the fireman to use to top the tree and get everything back on terra firma. But in this fantastical adventure, that, too, is not to be. Then, suddenly, Floyd gets his wish:

THERE WAS NO MORE ROOM LEFT IN THE TREE AND THE KITE CAME UNSTUCK.

FLOYD WAS DELIGHTED, ENJOYING THE REST OF HIS DAY.

FLOYD FEEL ASLEEP, EXHAUSTED.

THOUGH BEFORE HE DID, HE COULD HAVE SWORN THERE WAS SOMETHING HE WAS FORGETTING.

Kids will chortle at the total absurdity of this little cumulative tale, which Oliver Jeffers narrates with appropriate deadpan sangfroid. There is plenty of room in this vertically-gifted format for Jeffries' tangle of a tree and its improbable embellishments to grow, and his illustrative style is well fitted to this imaginative tale, with Floyd himself as stylized stick figure whose outfit is a simple plaid rectangle and whose tree is a simple trunk with a circular scribble for foliage. Jeffries' witty text is done up in a hand-printed combination of childlike cursive and manuscript, and the overall effect is uniquely charming. Stuck (Philomel, 2011) will provide giggles which will escalate along with Floyd's ever-more-loaded tree all the way to the final wry ending. Kids will be stuck on Stuck.

Fang Ten! Gibbus Moony Wants to Bite You by Leslie Muir

GIBBUS MOONY'S BABY FANGS HAD FALLEN OUT.

HE SMILED INTO THE MIRROR.

THE TEENY TINY TIPS OF HIS GROWN-UP FANGS TWINKLED.

NO ONE COULD CALL HIM THE BABY OF THE FAMILY ANYMORE.

Gibb just can't wait to take his new teeth out for a trial run. "I want to bite someone!" he announces.

Grandpa Waning Moony is on him right away, pointing out that his family are all proud "nectarines," "juice suckers" unlike those, ahem, other unmentionable cousins of theirs. But the littlest Moony can't restrain the urge to bite a neck, even when the neck of a violin turns out to be more toothpicks than toothsome!

In a vampirian sulk Gibby takes himself outdoors to hang out under his favorite hanging around tree, and when he drifts into a dream of succulent sucking, he suddenly awakens to find himself the unwilling object of a trio of human toothies from a toddler's three new teeth. Gibby take refuge in the tree, hanging from his favorite limb to hide his wounded pride, as the new boy next door climbs up to hang from his knees beside him and commiserates.

"WATCH OUT. THAT'S MANDY, MY BABY SISTER. WE CALL HER 'MANDIBLES,'" HE EXPLAINS.

"SHE BITES EVERYTHING!

BITING IS FOR BABIES!" Moe adds definitvely.

Hmmmm! Gib suddenly sees his yen to bite in a totally new light!

Embarrassed, he grabs a apple from the tree and buries his fangs in fruit.

"UPSIDE-DOWN APPLES ARE TOTALLY TOOTHSOME!" SAYS HIS NEW FRIEND.

"FANGTABULOUS!" SAYS GIBBY.

Jen Corace's illustrations are also fangtabulously apropos in Leslie Muir's latest, Gibbus Moony Wants to Bite You! (Atheneum, 2011), a fang fable that is totally on target for the coming scary season. Vampires are always fair game for a bit of farce, and this fangtastic toothsome tale will go down nice and easy with the storytime crowd.

A Word With You: Thirteen Words by Lemony Snicket

THE BIRD WAS DESPONDENT.

IN FACT, SO SAD THAT SHE HOPS OFF THE TABLE TO LOOK FOR SOMETHING TO CHEER HER UP.

13 Words (Harper, 2010) reads like a Freudian exercise in word associations, delivered in a stream-of-consciousness text as filtered through the brain of Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Lemony Snicket, author of the best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events, illustrated as if in an impressionistic dream state by the vivid paintings of Maira Kalman.

The product is an intensely strange and creative outing which ably illustrates not only the literal meaning, but the feelings invoked by Snicket's thirteen words: bird, despondent, cake, dog, busy, convertible, goat, hat, haberdashery, scarlet, baby, panache, and mezzo-soprano. The plot, if this quirky picture book can be said to have one, involves a royal blue bird with a royal case of the blues, progressively lightened by the presence of mood-enhancing cakes, and a witty and well-intentioned dog who distracts the moody blue bird with the sweet snack:

"THAT HIT THE SPOT!" SAYS THE DOG, "BUT NOW I THINK YOU WOULD BETTER GET BUSY."

And the bird is off for a ride in a convertible to select a hat at a haberdashery with a scarlet door run by a baby (of course!). The hats are varied--a deerstalker a la Sherlock, a scarlet fez, a Beefeater's tall fur, and a spiffy black top hat--with plenty of panache. Dog and bird are pleased with their hats, but all is forgotten when a mezzo-soprano (why not?) walks in with something tied up in a box--more cake! "HOW WAS YOUR DAY?" she inquires as if they were old friends. It's obviously time for more cake.

ALTHOUGH THE BIRD, TO TELL THE TRUTH, IS STILL A BIT DESPONDENT.

It's a combination of sly wordplay and pure Snicketry of the sort that sets grownups wondering and that most children love. Kalman's illustrations here are choice and altogether playful, combining unlikely colors such as buttery yellow and pink, and keeping the quirky story moving through this unusual word list. Although an example of the picture book genre, this one lends itself well to the sort of writing exercise teachers love in which students compose a story from a series of disparate words. For another sample of Kalman's genius, see her loving tribute to American democracy, And the Pursuit of Happiness.

Delete v.1.0: The Eraserheads by Kate Banks

"HOORAY FOR MISTAKES!" CRIED THE OWL.

"YES," SAID THE CROCODILE.

"THERE'D BE NOTHING TO LEARN," THE PIG NOTED.

"AND WHAT FUN WOULD THAT BE?"

"Take chances! Make mistakes!" Ms. Frizzle, the gung-ho science teacher of Magic School Bus fame, always exhorted her bemused young students, and Kate Banks' latest, The Eraserheads (Farrar, Strous, & Giroux, 2010) advocates the same theme. Her jaunty knights of the pencil cup, bright-colored cap erasers in the form of Crocodile, Owl, and Pig, attack errors with elan, erasing mistakes without remorse.

4 + 3 = 8, THE BOY WROTE.

"WHOOPS! THAT'S NOT RIGHT!" SAID THE CROCODILE. THE CROCODILE WAS GOOD WITH NUMBERS. HE ERASED THE 8. THE BOY PUT A 7 IN ITS PLACE.

Owl specializes in letters, correcting sloppy shapes and misspelled words with great skill. Pig, on the other hand, is not fussy. He just loves to "eat" any kind of mistake, as long as it doesn't involve something that might eat him!

All is well in the Land of Paper and Pencils until the Boy's drawing of a beach scene gets a bit out of hand and threatens to take the Eraserheads right off the page.

THE CROCODILE BEGAN TO ERASE THE ROAD. HE GOT CARRIED AWAY. HE RUBBED AND RUBBED UNTIL HE'D ERASED THE ROAD COMPLETELY. AND THE ERASERHEADS WERE LEFT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!

"OOOPS!" SAID THE CROCODILE. "WE'VE MADE A MISTAKE. WE'RE SUPPOSED TO CORRECT MISTAKES, NOT MAKE THEM."

Kate Banks' premise is clever, but it is Boris Kulikov's bright acrylic illustrations which bring her theme to realization with their realistically portrayed characters and backgrounds which take the reader right into the world of the Eraserheads. Banks and Krulikov are also collaborators on their highly reviewed earlier works, Max's Words and its sequel Max's Dragon.

Posy Parable: Rose's Garden by Peter H. Reynolds

Rose was a dreamer, an adventurer.

But when Rose is done with her voyages across oceans and through many lands, she sails home in her seaworthy teapot, bringing with her the seeds she has gathered from each port and place she visits.

"It's time to plant my garden," she said.

Rose sails up river into the heart of a busy seaport town, where, amid the bustle and press of many old buildings she comes upon a spot that needs her work.

There she found a dusty, forgotten stretch of earth.

"Hmmm." Rose pondered. "This little patch needs some color."

But things do not go well. A flock of hungry birds pilfer her cache of precious seeds, leaving only a few remnants scattered around. And when Rose carefully prepares the soil for these few seeds and trusts them to the ground, the rain is first too heavy and then too sparse. Dry hot summer is followed by frozen winter, and although Rose waits patiently, spring does not bring the hoped-for seedlings. Rose's hopes seem forlorn.

One day a girl approached Rose with a gift. It was a paper flower.

"I made it myself for your garden," the girl said.

Rose places the bright paper flower into the emptiness of her unrealized garden, and soon other children, each with a homemade flower, bring their creations and tell her their stories, until the barren earth is ablaze with color. Rose then hears the sound of a bee and sees that among the paper flowers is a real flower, growing from the soil she tilled so patiently. Soon living blooms crowd her garden.

Rose realized that her travels were over, and she was home. Home in this amazing garden--this splash of color in the middle of a great city.

Peter H. Reynolds' Rose's Garden (Candlewick, 2009) is an inventive parable inspired by the public greenway which grew out of the barren land emerging from the demolition of the overhead highway during Boston's "big dig." Freed from the darkness of interstate flyovers, this patch of land, now open to the sun and a view of the waters of Boston Bay, is dedicated to the memory of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Reynolds latest is "a tribute to Rose Kennedy, a woman who planted her own perennial garden."

Peter Reynolds is noted as the illustrator of the very popular Judy Moody series and his own books, among them the best-selling Someday, Ish, and The Dot. (Irma S and James H Black Honor for Excellence in Children's Literature (Awards))

Fluffer-Nutter: The Marshmallow Incident by Judi Barrett

2009 was a big year for children's books-to-movies events, what with Fantastic Mr. Fox, Where the Wild Things Are, Coraline: The Graphic Novel, and, of course, Judi and Ron Barrett's evergreen pantry staple, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

The Barretts, having left the kids of Chewandswallow sledding down that mashed potato mountain, apparently couldn't resist more fun food fantasies, coming out with a companion book, Pickles To Pittsburgh (Atheneum, 2000), in which the townspeople of Chewandswallow, their municipality filled with fantastic falling foods, organize to share their bounty worldwide, with eggplants to Ecuador, pickles to Pittsburgh, and, natch, chili to Chile.

Now comes another food fest, their latest, The Marshmallow Incident (Scholastic, 2009). It seems that the good people of two neighboring towns once had the same problem as the residents in Dr. Seuss' classic account of historic animosities, The Butter Battle Book: (New York Times Notable Book of the Year) (Classic Seuss), recounted in an old diary found in a box of stale marshmallows in a ruined castle.

The diary tells the story of two towns--the town of Left and the town of Right: everyone in the town of Left was left-handed, and everyone who lived in the town of Right was right-handed, and they had been that way for generations. The difference seemed so extreme to the people of Left and Right that they refused to have anything to do with one another. It didn't help that that someone had painted a bright yellow dotted line between the two towns.

The landscape of the side-by-side towns was also dotted by signage which constantly reminded the citizens of their forgotten dispute: RIGHT IS WRONG! proclaims one side. GO RIGHT HOME! the other side shouts back. THE RIGHT ANGLE INN proclaims one business; LEFTIES' RESTAURANT: WE PROUDLY SERVE LEFT-OVERS! retorts one from the other side. And presiding over this division proudly was the Order of the Ambidextrous Knights of the Dotted Yellow Line, dedicated to keeping those of Left and Right apart forever.

What can possibly restore unity to these disgruntled regions? Well, it involves a copious supply of marshmallows and a humongous food fight, in which the absurdity of it all finally hits the Lefties and the Righties, as buried under a blizzard of the fluffy blobs, the folks finally come to their senses and ditch their differences in a joint marshmallow roast and s'mores feast.

With this little parable about letting small differences overcome common sense, Judi and Ron Barrett's The Marshmallow Incident is a fabulously funny food fantasy with pictures over which kids will pore as they chuckle and chomp through the latest from this talented pair.

Pair this one with its gustatory predecessors or with multiple Caldecott winner, David Wiesner and his free-falling food fantasy, June 29, 1999.

And please pass the parsnips!

Fall Fantasy: Little Red's Autumn Adventure by Sarah Ferguson

Coming off of her best-selling Tea for Ruby (Paula Wiseman Books) (see review post here), Duchess Sarah Ferguson returns to her Little Red series in a brand-new seasonal adventure.

Little Red and her friend Little Blue, her dog Gino, and pony Roany set off from Buttercup Cottage on a bright fall day for the local harvest festival, Little Red as always packing along her magical Sack of Smiles. Cheerily leaf-boarding down the hillsides along the way, the group stops abruptly when Little Red discovers a couple of little lost mice, separated from Mrs. Mouse and their seven other siblings on the way to the celebration and terrified by the appearance of a large red-haired human peering down at them.

"Don't worry," said Little Red in her sweetest kind of voice. "I'll help you."

"But you're so BIG," peeped one tiny mouse. "And SCARY!" whispered the other.

So Little Red reached into her Sack of Smiles, grabbed a handful of magic dust, sprinkled it over her head, and ... ZIPPITY DOO DAH!... she shrunk right down to the size of the tiny mice. "That's better!" she said. "Now tell me what's the matter."

But then Red realizes that she's made the same mistake as Alice (in Wonderland); she's left her magic sack behind, hanging from a tree limb, and now she's too tiny to reach it to turn herself back to her own size so that she can carry the lost mice to meet their mother. "Oh, snagaroo!" she grumbles.

But, of course, size screw-ups are no problem for the resourceful Little Red, and with the help of her friends and a bit of quick thinking, the group is soon on its way to the harvest festival and a mouse family reunion in jig time. Ferguson's jolly new tale, Little Red's Autumn Adventure, (Simon & Schuster, 2009) told with her usual English flavor, is a light and bouncy bit of fall fantasy. Sam Williams' charming endpapers and illustrations, done up with an autumn palette and set off against bright white backgrounds, carry the load in giving this little story its seasonal appeal.