THE MITTEN

A little boy goes out to play in the snow with the mittens his grandmother knitted him, but comes back with only one. They’ll look for it later, she says, and comforts him with hot cocoa. Meanwhile a squirrel discovers the mitten and curls up in it for a warm nap. Then a rabbit, a fox and a bear each come along, and after much pleading they are let in. Finally, a tiny mouse manages to talk his way in, with a mitten-destroying result. Aylesworth brings a folksy voice to the story, and McClintock’s detailed black-lined illustrations set on snowy white backgrouds add to the vintage sensibility. She invests her animals with enormous personality and the scene with an absurd humor with the use of sequential vignettes, making it both visually and tonally quite different from Jan Brett’s 1992 version. What really shines is the temptation offered to little imaginations: What happens to all those lost mittens when you’re not there? Certainly fun to think about while drinking hot cocoa on a snowy day—recipe included. Fresh. (Picture book. 3-6)