THREE PEBBLES AND A SONG

Unlike the rest of his family, Moses the mouse can’t focus on gathering supplies in anticipation of the coming winter. Instead, he dances (“twirling and skittering”), he sings “a whistle-y song” with the wind through the dried cornstalks, and he juggles pebbles near a stream—all of which come in handy later, when the other mice profess to being bored in their snug refuge. Readers of Leo Lionni’s Frederick (1967) may experience some déjà vu, but not only does Spinelli give the tale a livelier, less formal tone, Schindler, taking a cue from Beatrix Potter, clothes his delicately detailed mice warmly as they scamper about, first in an atmospherically autumnal landscape, then within a comfortably furnished tree stump. An indirect but eloquent reminder that art, too, is a staff of life. (Picture book. 6-8)