Lambslide

The Farmer family's lambs are extraordinarily adorable and remarkably self-centered: "Everything was about the lambs, as far as the lambs were concerned," writes PEN/Faulkner Award-winning Patchett, making her children's book debut. When young Nicolette Farmer announces her candidacy for class president and her mother predicts she'll "win by a landslide," the lambs naturally hear "lambslide" and rally support for this heretofore nonexistent recreational equipment. Shedding--for the most part--their woolly airhead ways, they canvass their farmyard constituency and take on tough questions (the chicken wants assurance that money won't be diverted from chicken feed). With a crafty assist from the now victorious Nicolette, they win a landslide farmyard vote for the lambslide, which is created with blue plastic sheeting on a hill. Patchett makes an important point without belaboring it: in a democracy, never count anyone out. Watercolor-and-ink depictions of farm life by Glasser (the Fancy Nancy series) seem a little idyllic at first--one of the lambs even wears a flower crown--but the approach proves to be the ideal visual counterpoint to Patchett's plainspoken prose. Ages 4-8. (May)

K-Gr 2—When the lambs overhear the farmer say the word landslide, they think he says lambslide and they immediately want one. What follows is a bit of a civics lesson as the lambs poll the other farm animals to see what they think of the slide idea. Each animal brings up a question the lambs hadn't considered. How will the slide affect the other animals? Who will get to use it? Who will pay for it? Where will they put it? Next, they petition the farmer for the slide with the help of the farmer's daughter (who just happened to win her class election by a landslide). Finally, the animals get to vote on the new lambslide, which of course, is approved overwhelmingly. The ink and watercolor illustrations are classic Glasser and the farm family will most likely remind readers of Fancy Nancy and her family. VERDICT A fun way to introduce the concepts of campaigning and voting to young readers.—Kelly Roth, Bartow County Public Library, Cartersville, GA