A New House For Smudge - Hardcover

PreSchool-Grade 2-Two adventures featuring a little mouse in a blue-dotted pinafore. In New House, Stripe the Badger persuades his young friend that it's time to move since their beloved home is too small and the roof leaks. On their walk through the woods they visit an old house that Stripe had seen earlier. It has a garden and a river running by. They set to work painting and scrubbing it and turning it into a country charmer. In the second book, Smudge is catching water snails at the stream to put in her jar before throwing them back. Her friends want a turn, but she is not quite ready to share her net. Before too long, they get tired of waiting and go upstream to join Goose. Smudge realizes that it's just no fun catching things alone, even though she's had a good haul for the day. All's well in the end, however, as she joins her friends upstream where they all play together. The plot lines in these two stories are linear and shallow, and have no particular substance. Done in pencil and watercolor, the pictures have been dappled with texture, softening the overall effect. Unfortunately, the artwork extends inexplicably onto the endpapers. Constance McGeorge's Boomer's Big Day (Chronicle, 1994) is a stronger story that focuses on moving day. For a realistic story with a message about family relationships and moving, try Sally Grindley's A New Room for William (Candlewick, 2000). Nancy Carlson's How to Lose All Your Friends (Viking, 1997) is lots more fun and a better choice for tales dealing with how to be and keep a friend.
Roxanne Burg, Thousand Oaks Library, CA
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