EARTH TO AUDREY

Catching sight of his summer neighbor sticking her face into a stream, a lad decides that she must be a space alien, and hastens to make her acquaintance. Poulin reinforces young Ray’s notion by casting Audrey with dreamy eyes, brightly patterned clothes and wildly crooked red braids—but provides clues to her odd behavior with glimpses of her father welding sculpture in the garage, and of exuberantly painted walls and doors in her house. Following his new friend’s lead, Ray begins to see his ordinary world with new eyes—learning to appreciate the many shades of green all around, for instance. Their faces modeled and polished like carved puppets, the two occupy an idyllic small-town setting, with visual references to the art of Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth adding both a sense of timelessness and a hint of mystery. At summer’s end, though Audrey and her family supposedly drive off in a highly decorated minivan, Ray keeps an eye out for clues that she’s still somewhere close. A sweet celebration of summer, of pleasantly unpredictable new friends and of the pleasures of taking fresh looks at everyday things. (Picture book. 6-8)