ANNA’S WISH

Anna has never seen the snow; her mother hasn’t seen it since she was Anna’s age. The city has grown accustomed to gray, snowless winters. But when Anna walks by the bakery window and spies the little horse standing on a cake, she feels “the tiniest cold touch.” Anna wishes—hard—on this little horse in the bakery, and “[l]ike tiny stars, her wishes floated up into the sky and froze. Then, slowly, they began to fall back down to earth.” Rave’s illustrations in this wee Swiss fable evoke Erik Blegvad’s in precision, palette and understated whimsy—they, like Hächler’s text and Anna’s wish, have just the right magic touch. (Picture book. 4-8)