ONCE UPON A TWICE
by Denise Doyen and illustrated by Barry Moser
A foolish mouse is prone to jamming up the line of fellow night-foragers to smell a rose and wandering off to watch a beetle. After nearly becoming a snake’s dinner, “Jam” lives on to lecture mouslings on the dangers of moonlit meanders. The lushness here is in Doyen’s “Jabberwocky”-inspired verse, delivered chiefly in rhyming four-line stanzas. “ ‘Beware the dangershine of Moon, / Do not disturb the bugs of June!’ / The elder mouncelors whispercroon / A tune that tells Jam what to fear…” The scansion’s near perfect, and deliciously inventive words (riskarascal, jaw-claws, furlickt) invite repeat read-alouds. Moser’s fulsome full-bleed pictures employ a palette of midnight blue, inky charcoal, grayed greens and luminescent ochres. Jagged stalks silhouette ominously against a fat, full moon that picks out detail in a cluster of white roses and the reptilian gleam of a snake’s scales. In a particularly effective spread, pairs of eyes, anonymously aglow, peer at prey from near-pitch darkness. This slight cautionary tale is undeniably arrayed in a gorgeous brocade, woven of fresh, inventive wordplay and masterful illustrations. (Picture book. 4-7)