Going the Moose Way Home

A year in the life of a very unusual moose, who shares his root beer with hungry cows, helps smaller animals across a troll bridge, and mistakes a train for a lady moose.

Kindergarten-Grade 4 A delightful combination of text and illustration depicts the down-home doings of Moose. This ``hill on hoofs and thin stork legs'' is a kindly creature somewhere between Bullwinkle and Garrison Keillor. Nine episodes of happenings ``on his way home'' to Moosewood, Minnesota contain gentle good humor and spritely descriptions of events and details that should intrigue children. Moose doesn't fear trolls or the dark (although he does fear ``thunder, and ghosts''), likes blueberries and root beer, and once eats his way across a pond ``tiled with green lily pads.'' He helps out an Easter Rabbit; champions animals afraid to cross a Troll Bridge; and cheers up a sad skunk on Valentine's Day. Carrick's full-color paintings throughout are a marvelous match and enhancement of the text. He catches Moose's birthday candle-blowing wish (to read music) as a hilariously imagined Moose in tails playing a baby grand, and adds a blanket and moose-imprint in the snowbank scene in which Moose munches on a schoolchild's sandwich after being plowed out for the bus' passage. Kindergarteners and primary gradersand those reading to themwill have fun hearing and seeing this distinctive book. Ruth M. McConnell, San Antonio Public Lib .
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Stunning watercolors combine with a wry year-in-the-life-of-a-moose storyline for an involving tale to read aloud. Moose "is tall, a hill on hoofs, and thin stork legs" and the lugubrious, lovable protagonist of these nine linked tales. He has many encounters with his forest friends and a wide variety of humorous adventures. Empathic and outgoing, Moose wants to share his Christmas dinner of frozen blueberries and lily pads with lonesome cows; he asks a skunk to be his Valentine; he helps the Easter Rabbit deliver his eggs; he celebrates his birthday creatively. Latimer's language is vividly descriptive and is wonderful to read aloud. Carrick's evocative watercolors convey the comic exaggeration of the tales; in fact, one wishes the book's design had allowed for more illustration. This pleasing collaboration should find a wide audience. Ages 6-8.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.