(Fancy Party Gowns) captures her heroine’s
winning self-possession with concision
and calm. Natalie never expresses panic or
regret, and when she finally tells the animals to vamoose, it’s because they’re the
ones at fault: “They won’t let me sleep,
and they’re just plain rude.” The digital
illustrations have a collaged feel that adds
to the sense of fanciful fun, but the most
impressive element of all is Natalie’s prodigious hair, a soft, cloudlike coif. Ages
4– 7. Agent: Bernadette Szost, Portfolio
Solutions. (Jan.)
Bub
Elizabeth Rose Stanton. S&S/Wiseman,
$17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-4814-8757-3
Quiet children sometimes disappear in
noisy households, and Stanton (Peddles)
notices. Bob—a sea green, single-fanged
monster in roomy blue overalls—is stuck
with an unwanted nickname. He “didn’t
close the top of his O” on the first day of
school, and now everybody calls him Bub.
His parents are cheerful but loud. Older
sister Bernice, whose dress is studded
with red bows, taunts him (“Then she
called him bubbly brain and said it would
take him until forever to get his homework
done”). And the Baby calls him Blub.
Bob/Bub doesn’t run away, exactly, but he
begins to drift around his home invisibly,
like a ghost. A heartfelt exchange of letters follows (“I want you to 1. Stop
shouting,” he writes). Stanton recognizes
that families need a reset every once in a
while, and that introverts in particular
may need extra reminders that they’re
loved. Her pencil and watercolor drawings, colored in the softest pastel shades,
convey gentle, manageable tension, and
her chatty narrative voice is grounded in
the realities of family life. Ages 4–8.
Agent: Joanna Volpe, New Leaf Literary &
Media. (Jan.)
Hello, Door
Alastair Heim, illus. by Alisa Coburn. Little
Bee, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-4998-0536-9
A wily, larcenous fox with the suave
moves of Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief
embarks on a caper. Slipping through the
open window of an elegant townhouse, he
gives a jaunty greeting to every room and
potential piece of plunder. “Hello, sofa.
Hello, chairs,” he says, swinging through
the living room on a chandelier. “Hello,
mirror. Hello, stairs,” he adds, glimpsing
his reflection as he adds silverware to his
haul. After hitting the jackpot—a cache
of jewelry that he can’t resist trying on—
he attempts to make an equally carefree
exit (“Bye-bye, bedroom. Bye-bye, stairs”)
and comes face-to-face with the house’s
inhabitants: the Three Bears. The fox’s
unceremonious ejection proves that crime
doesn’t pay, but there’s no doubt that
incorrigibility has a certain charisma.
Coburn (who worked with Heim on Love
You Too) gives her bushy-tailed hero suitably balletic moves, putting him to work
in stylish interiors rendered in dusky
pinks and soft Wedgwood blue. Heim’s
snappy, saucy text should bring out the
lovable rogue in anyone who reads it
aloud. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)
Wide-Awake Bear
Pat Zietlow Miller, illus. by Jean Kim. Harper,
$17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-06-235603-1
For Elliott, a young bear, going to sleep
before spring is like going to sleep the
night before a birthday. In his cave, snuggled up to his hibernating mother, Elliott
dreams “of golden sunshine, soft grass,
and budding flowers.” But he wakes up
while it’s still winter and can’t get back to
sleep. Switching positions and thinking
pleasant thoughts don’t work: he’s “Still.
Wide. Awake,” a problem familiar to
many readers. Endlessly patient, Elliott’s
mother offers reassurance, snacks, and
(best of all) a sign that spring really is
coming. Debut illustrator Kim textures
her digitally colored images with soft
graphite, and her bears are smooth and
roly-poly. Colors are muted in the bear
cave, but tints of spring are evident outside. The episode in which Elliott’s
mother helps him through his fear of the
dark seems like the solution that will help
him sleep, but it’s just the first in a series
of encounters in a long “night” of hibernation. Elliott’s difficulty falling back to
sleep might help other bed-goers sympathize—and might make them sleepier.
Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Ammi-Joan
Paquette, Erin Murphy Literary. (Jan.)
The Pink Umbrella
Amélie Callot, trans. from the French by Tara
Hinchberger, illus. by Geneviève Godbout.
Tundra, $17.99 (80p) ISBN 978-1-101-91923-1
Understated text and gauzy pencil-and-
pastel artwork transport readers to a sea-
side village where social life revolves
around the Polka-Dot Apron, a café run
by a young woman named Adele. “It’s
where everyone meets,” writes French
author Callot. “Where they cry, laugh,
yell, argue and love.” Adele herself “is
the village’s sun—lively, sweet and spar-
kling,” but her spirit plummets whenever
the weather turns rainy: on one gray day,
Godbout (When Santa Was a Baby) shows
her scowling from beneath a floral
magenta quilt,
refusing to open
the café. Over a
few sunny days,
rain boots, a
raincoat, and
umbrella—all
bright pink—
show up at the
Polka-Dot
Apron. Readers will likely guess who is
responsible (a handsome handyman
named Lucas) before Adele does, and a
subdued romantic undercurrent swells as
she begins to appreciate the rain: “The
wind was fresh, the drops slid off the
leaves, the snails were out.” It’s a languid
story, and mystery rain gear is a pretty
low-key hook, but it’s also an atmospheric
portrait of village life and the small
actions that build loving communities
and relationships. Ages 6–9. Illustrator’s
agent: Emily van Beek, Folio Literary
Management. (Jan.)
Fiction
Spy Toys
Mark Powers, illus. by Tim Wesson.
Bloomsbury, $13.99 (224p) ISBN 978-1-68119-
665-7
Comically inept characters, screwball
plotting, and snarky dialogue fuel this
adventure from newcomer Powers. At the
Snaztacular Ultrafun toy factory, Dan (a
teddy bear with a faulty snuggle chip that
causes him to hug with kid-crushing
strength) and Arabella (a rag doll whose
crossed wires have left her “with the attitude of a bad-tempered rattlesnake”)
escape from the reject pile. Along with
Flax, a police robot disguised as a rabbit,
they are recruited as “Spy Toys” by the
Department of Secret Affairs, an organiza-
