Nana's Book Library

• Age: 1-6
• Particulars (Out of 5):   
  • Beautiful folk art: *****  
  • Happy woodland creatures ***** 
  • Inappropriate language:  None.
  • Sexual references:  None.

Reminder: Nana’s Books are rated G.  Anyone could read them, or listen to them being read aloud.

Jan Brett has the particular talent of creating gentle and beautiful stories you wish you could just jump into.  She also adds mini-glimpses in the margins of what’s going to happen next, so there’s always lots to look at and talk about if you’re reading aloud.

            “Once there was a boy named Nicki who wanted his new mittens made from wool as white as snow.”  His grandmother, Baba, knits them for him – with a warning: “If you drop one in the snow, you’ll never find it.”  And sure enough, almost immediately, Nicki drops a mitten in the snow.  But wait!  Nicki’s loss is the gain of the animal neighborhood!  A tiny mole discovers the mitten first.  “It was cozy and warm and just the right size, so he decided to stay.”

            Then who should come hopping by but a snowshoe rabbit:  “The mole didn’t think there was room for both of them, but when he saw the rabbit’s big kickers he moved over.”

            And so it goes:  The rabbit and mole soon make room for a prickly hedgehog… and a big owl…and a badger…and a fox… and then… a bear!  Incredibly, the mitten has room for them all.  “The mitten swelled and stretched.  It was pulled and bulged to many times its size.  But Baba’s good knitting held fast.”  It sure did!  That woman knits a sturdy product!  The mitten is durable!  

            And finally, a tiny mouse, “no bigger than an acorn,” crawls into the mitten and finds a comfy spot right on the tip of the bear’s nose – which causes perhaps the biggest sneeze ever, launching the mitten skyward.  Nicki sees it flying through the air, and brings it back safe and sound (although quite stretched) to Baba.  

This happy book is available new and used, paperback and hardcover on Amazon.  It is also available on eBay and Abebooks.   

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc.