by Charlotte Offsay (Author) Abi Cushman (Illustrator)
When a small action creates a snowball effect that disrupts the peace of the animals, the forest and a bear cub restore order once more in this delightfully funny picture book.
A mischievous mouse wanders alone in a quiet, nothing-to-do forest. Until one small mishap snowballs into a chain of outrageous events, causing the whole forest full of animals to have a very loud day indeed.
Can they find a way to bring calm and quiet back to their home?
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It's "a quiet, nothing-to-do forest," rendered in pencil and digitally colored illustrations by Cushman (Wombats Are Pretty Weird) as grassy and green, with a placid pond nestled beneath shady trees. But the almost palpable sylvan stillness is quickly interrupted by a "mischievous" backpack-wearing brown mouse who swings on to a rabbit's plate of extravagantly topped pancakes and swipes the whole dish, triggering a comic cascade of mayhem. Offsay (Challah Day!) assigns each unwitting participant an evocative italicized adjective: the rattled rabbit crashes into a bothered beaver; further down the line, a miserable moose is the result of having its en plein air painting impaled on its antlers. The now "seriously noisy" forest arouses the ire of a sleeping mama bear, but before another raucous response ensues, the forest itself intercedes with a calming, musical breeze: "Whoosh. Swish. Whoosh. Swish." Everyone regains their composure, kindness is passed back up the line, and the forest is transformed into a lively, congenial community that "isn't too loud or too quiet at all"--for the moment, anyway. For audiences that love quiet, and those that loathe it, the joyful resolution following this jolt of antic boisterousness should strike a resounding chord. Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Nicole Geiger, Full Circle Literary. Illustrator's agent: Kendra Marcus, BookStop Literary. (Mar.)
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