Dress Warmly! Otto Goes North by Ulrika Kestere

There's a blueberry blue house with a grass roof by the sea, way, way up north. Beside the blue house is a little red sauna hut, which can be very handy in the far north. And that's where a little lynx named Lisa and a little bear named Nils live together.

One day Lisa was on the roof, mowing the grass. Nils was setting out afternoon tea in in the garden. They wanted everything to be nice for their friend Otto, a lemur, who was coming to visit.

His bike was red with a large shiny bell. Otto would ring it like mad, enough to be annoying

"Pling, Pling, Pling! Here I am!" he called.

As the three enjoy their tea, Otto tells his old friends of his plan.

"This evening I'll see the Northern Lights at last," said Otto.
I'll paint them so I can hang the picture on my wall at home!"

But there's a problem with the plan. Northern Lights only appear at night, and after nightfall, it grows quite too cold for Otto to work. His teeth chatter and he shivers all over.

He shook so hard he could not hold his brush!

Lisa and Nils rush Otto into their sauna, where he warms right up, but seems to be catching a cold. What to do?

But Otto's hosts have an idea. They decide to make Otto a really warm sweater--if they can figure out how to do that! Lisa remembers a book she has about how to spin wool into yarn and knit a woolen sweater. But first they need some wool--and there are no sheep on their island.

But wait! Wool is just sheep fur, and being a lynx and a bear, Lisa and Nils have thick fur, too. Following the book's directions, they brush and card and spin their fur on their neighbor Lena's spinning wheel into a quantity of yarn, which they dye blueberry blue, onion-skin yellow, and red cabbage red. By the time they are done with the knitting, Otto has recovered from his cold and wearing his snug sweater, he is busy doing two paintings, one for himself, and one for Lisa and Nils' house.

Ulrika Kestere's Otto Goes North (Gecko Press, 2019) is a lovely and quaint story set in a chilly Scandinavian scene in a charming faux naif style of illustrations very appealing to young readers, one which also offers an introduction to spinning and knitting. Says School Library Journal, "A perfect story to pair with a lesson on fiber art or dyeing."  For more, share this one with Caldecott artist Tomie de Paola's delightful and detailed account of the process of making a woolen cloak, Charlie Needs a Cloak.

You Never Know! Lucy and the String by Vanessa Roeder

LUCY FOUND A STRING.

SO SHE GAVE IT A TUG.

Not much happens, so she tugs harder, and then she gives the red string a yank!

LUCY MET HANK!

GROWL!

Hank is one very crotchety bear. But who wouldn't be? It seems that the red string Lucy has been pulling so cavalierly is, or was... the yarn from Hank's knit trousers.

Lucy tries to coax a better mood out of Hank by hamming it up with the red yarn. She makes herself a silly, droopy cat hat, an Abraham Lincoln top hat, a lasso, and spells out an apt word.

YEEHAW!

She whirls the yarn to make it into pantaloons for herself and Hank. He scowls. She twirls up a red tutu, but it, too, is too, too skimpy to cover Hank's, er, situation.

HANK WAS STILL A BARE BEAR.

HE JUST WANTED PANTS.

Then Lucy has an inspiration. She quickly knits herself a kitschy sweater which hangs well below her knees. Then she takes off her black and white dress and offers it to Hank as a skirt. Amazingly, he likes it! Who knew? Problem solved! So Lucy impulsively snips the string between herself and Hank.

Now why is Hank SAD? Can Lucy knit up a solution to this sudden sense of separation?

In a sweet and silly story of novel forms of fashion and friendship found, Vanessa Roeder's brand-new Lucy and the String (Dial Books, 2018) creates a way to knit together an unlikely pair with a special shared bond. Author Roeder's text is as as simple as her minimalist palette of blackish, red, and white, fashioning appealing characters--Lucy with her spiky black pigtails with red bows, and Hank, whose fur seems to knitted in a herringbone tweed pattern, from watercolors, pencil, and "lots of digital string." Roeder's "string" is, of course, a symbol of the ties that bind as well as the tie that links the story together, and youngsters will sense that metaphor subliminally even as they snicker at the pants-less bare-bottomed bear Hank. Kirkus sews it all up, saying, "An imaginative and entertaining tale of crafting and friendship."

Co-Creations: Knit Together by Angela Dominguez

I LOVE TO DRAW.

MOM DOESN'T DRAW. MOM KNITS.

I THINK KNITTING IS MUCH BETTER THAN DRAWING.

WHY? BECAUSE YOU CAN WEAR IT.

Mother and daughter are both creative, but with a practical bent. Mom knits useful things, like a wool hat with a cat face and a scarf and mittens for her little daughter. It seems both of them like to walk on the cold and windy wintry beach together.

But the little girl decides that she need to learn to knit like Mom. Mom agrees to show her how to cast on the yarn and knit her stitches. Except knitting is not so easy for little hands. Soon the yarn is all in a tangle all over the floor.

No one is happy about that but their little dog, who thinks the yarn makes a great puppy toy.

Sensing a meltdown in the making, Mom tries a different tack.

WE COME UP WITH THE BEST IDEA.

WE'LL MAKE SOMETHING TOGETHER!

Daughter sets to drawing. trying to come up with the perfect design for Mom to knit. It has to be special, celebrating something that both of them love.

And after some frustrating failures, she comes up with the perfect design, The last page shows mother and daughter at the beach, watching the boats bouncing over the waves and wrapped in a knitted blanket with a beautiful sailboat design on the back.

Angela Dominguez' latest, Knit Together (Dial Books, 2015), captures just the right mood in her story of mother and daughter knit together in a common project which they can put to practical use together right away. Dominguez's black line and mixed media illustrations--ink, colored pencil, gouache, and digital color--full of movement, yet showing the affection between the two characters, tell her story well. There's plenty of gentle humor, with our girl having a bit of a sulk under the sofa table, drawing on its underside in frustration, and the antics of their little dog as he tries to get into all the action. A perfect tale for crafty parent and child to share, and right for a Mothers Day read as well.

Angela Dominguez is also the author of Maria Had a Little Llama / María Tenía Una Llamita (Pura Belpre Honor Books - Illustration Honor), Santiago Stays, and Let's Go, Hugo!, (see my reviews here).