SILVER MORNING

Pearson’s story is all atmosphere, and the mood is indigo. During an early morning in the country, fog dulls and deepens everything. Two siblings venture out into the pea-soup world, where their progress is measured by crisp and short sentences—“Beyond the trestle the woods begin . . . We peer ahead into the tangled brush.” The effect is a nice crunchiness amid all the opacity, although Pearson is overly fond of doubling up words: “Suddenly the fog is busy busy,” “twisting twisting,” “quiet quiet,” and “silently silently we pass through the pines.” The children hit all their favorite spots and then take up station in the silvery mist in hopes of seeing a deer. No such luck, but they are attentive to their landscape, even as the fog slips away before they notice. Pearson (Eagle Eye Ernie Comes to Town, 1990, etc.) invokes the otherworldliness of a dawn fog, and its way of infusing the familiar with elements that are remote and protected in the same stroke. Christiana’s watercolor artwork is softly focused, but sharp lines define the setting and neatly skirt mawkishness. (Picture book. 5-7)