Mine! This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers

WILFRED OWNED A MOOSE.

HE HADN'T ALWAYS OWNED A MOOSE.  THE MOOSE CAME TO HIME AWHILE AGO, AND HE KNEW, JUST KNEW, THAT IT WAS MEANT TO BE.

HE THOUGHT HE'D CALL IT MARCEL.

But the trouble with meese, er, mooses, uh,  moose is that they require some training in being a proper pet.

And Wilfred is just the lad for that. He's a boy for whom rules are a pleasure, not a pain in the patootie. He draws up a list of moose maxims, such as

RULE 1: NO MAKING NOISE WHILE WILFRED IS LISTENING TO HIS RECORD COLLECTION.

Marcel seems to find it amenable to remain mum during music appreciation time, but he absolutely ignores RULE 7.

GO WHICHEVER WAY WILFRED WANTS TO GO.

Marcel is a total scofflaw on that one, and Wilfred finds himself doing more following of Marcel than leading, trekking in his moose's tracks over the mountains and through the woods until he comes to a cottage where a woman runs out the door and greets his moose too enthusiastically:

"RODRIGO! YOU'RE BACK!"

There seems to be a question of ownership here, and Wilfred seems to have lost out to the old woman's apple supply. Marcel ignores him and Wilfred sadly heads back through the wilderness for home. Is this the end of the road for Wilfred and Marcel?

Nope. There's one more rule that Marcel unexpectedly manages to follow:

RULE 73: RESCUE YOUR OWNER FROM PERILOUS SITUATIONS.

If there is a moral to this pet-owner's parable, it is surely that you can't be a master to a moose. But he can be your friend--when he wants to.

Oliver Jeffers latest, This Moose Belongs to Me (Philomel, 2012) abandons his minimalist style in his Stuck or The New Sweater: The Hueys, Book 1 (see my reviews here), choosing instead rather a lavish natural setting of what resembles Rocky Mountain backdrops, with snow-topped peaks and rows of evergreens, while his Wilfred, who somehow resembles a rather stiff and reserved Charlie Brown, tries to impose a rigorous regime upon his unconcerned would-be pet. It is Jeffers' wry approach that makes the absurdity of this tale of a boy and his adopted moose both preposterous and totally natural at the same time.

As Publishers Weekly puts it, "The moose may not belong to Wilfred, but the laughs certainly belong to Jeffers.

Colorful Correspondence: The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt

Duncan's crayons are on strike.

Even that colorless nonentity, White Crayon, has a complaint.

Dear Duncan,

You color with me, but WHY? 

Most of the time I'm the same color as the page you are using me on--WHITE!

Your Empty Friend,
White Crayon

Pink Crayon pointedly puts forth her problem sharply:

Duncan,

You have used me ONCE in the past year (thanks to your little sister for using me on her princesses coloring book!)

Your unused friend,
Pink Crayon

Gray Crayon points out that he doesn't have a point, worn down to a nub because of Duncan's apparent obsession with illustrating elephants. Yellow and Orange querulously insist that each of them holds the franchise on coloring the sun and Duncan must choose between them--or else!

Black is tired of being used to outline things with which he has absolutely no interest in associating himself.  Beige Crayon insists on his politically correct name; no more calling him TAN! Red requests a rest from working holiday overtime on all that Christmas and Valentine's Day duty. Purple appreciates being so popular, but why can't Duncan keep him inside the lines!!!! And Peach Crayon has a personal privacy issue:

Hey, Duncan,

It's Peach Crayon. 

Why did you peel off my paper wrapping?

Now I'm naked, and too embarrassed to leave the crayon box. How would YOU like to go to school NAKED?

Epistolary narration is a device quite familiar in novels, but author Drew Daywalt and illustrator Oliver Jeffers use it to excellent effect in their best-selling colorful collaboration of correspondence, The Day the Crayons Quit (Philomel, 2013). Thinking inside the box (the crayon box, that is) Daywalt's dry wit exactly matches Jeffers' scratchy line and expertly faux naif reproductions of childlike drawings in a combination of job action letters that are charming, classy and sassy, and, well, quite colorful. Kirkus Reviews puts them all back in the box in their summary: "Clever spreads, such as Duncan's "white cat in the snow" perfectly capture the crayons' conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale's overall believability. A comical, fresh look at crayons and color."

Other standout examples of Oliver Jeffers' witty work include This Moose Belongs to Me (see review here), and Stuck (see review here).