Brown looks in his closet and sorts through his other family members’ shoes with no luck, his father and his siblings help him search the farm. Brown can’t help with farm chores because his shoes are missing-a common occurrence in his household and likely in many readers’ as well.Ĭhildren will be delighted that the titular Mr. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.Ī sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. Here, he maintains a folkloric narrative that results in a traditional story arc complete with repetition, drama and a satisfying conclusion.Ī quiet story of sharing with no strings attached.Ī paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere. Barnett entertained middle-grade readers with his Brixton Brothers detective series. The stitches of the sweaters add a subdued rainbow.

Klassen, who worked on the film Coraline, uses inks, gouache and colorized scans of a sweater to create a stylized, linear design of dark geometric shapes against a white background. It wends its way back to Annabelle, who ends up happily sitting in a knit-covered tree.

The greedy archduke gets his just deserts when he opens the box to find it empty. Annabelle refuses his monetary offers, whereupon the box is stolen. All and everything are warm, cozy and colorful until a clotheshorse of an archduke arrives. A little girl in a town of white snow and soot-blackened chimneys opens a small box and discovers a never-ending gift of colorful yarn.Īnnabelle knits herself a sweater, and with the leftover yarn, she knits one for her dog, and with the yarn left over from that, she knits one for a neighbor and for her classmates and for her teacher and for her family and for the birdhouse and for the buildings in town.

Jon klassen extra yarn