WHEN STELLA WAS VERY, VERY SMALL

Stella has always been a fountain of creative knowledge, offering her little brother Sam the benefits of her vivid imagination. In previous works they have had adventures by the seashore, in the forest and in the snow. Now Gay offers her readers some insight into the younger Stella, before Sam. Was she always so inquisitive and full of startling ideas? The answer is emphatically, “Yes!” The huge world represented by her house and yard translates into jungles and oceans filled with all kinds of wildlife. Not yet having unlocked the mysteries of the “ants running off the pages” of her books, she listens to the trees telling stories in the nighttime. Now that she is big, she can do so much more—and pass along all of it to Sam. The charming illustrations, rendered in watercolor, pastel and collage, depict red-headed Stella’s antics in great detail and from a variety of perspectives. Young readers will wish they could be just like Stella, or at least have a big sister like her. Stella is both wonderful and full of wonder—purely glorious. (Picture book. 3-7)