SOLUTIONS FOR COLD FEET AND OTHER LITTLE PROBLEMS

A little girl and her dog tackle little problems.

The series of six scenarios, concluding with “Solutions for Cold Feet,” follows a white girl and her dog as first she searches for a missing shoe, they get caught in the rain, they “share” a melting ice cream cone (it’s not her idea to share), they face a boring day, and she loses a hat in the wintery wind. Some of the small stories are overtly linked—after building a snowman on the day she temporarily loses her hat, the girl and her dog go inside and she ends up with the titular cold feet. Other stories are not connected, and this gives the book a scattered feel. The various scenarios depend on different seasons, but this wouldn’t make tying the stories together impossible, and doing so could have delivered a more satisfying slice-of-life story. The illustrations, rendered in gouache and arranged digitally, show great promise as they recall Barbara Lehman’s style with their thick, sure outlines and limited palette, but the inventive nature of her work (see The Red Book, 2004) isn’t fully realized here.

Some little problems but still a read with plenty of warmth.