By Lois Ehlert
Beach Lane / Simon & Schuster, 2023
28 pages
9781534401723
Ages 2-5
This tall, narrow book features a bisected green tree studded with boldly colored “ornaments” on its red cover. Inside, a rhyming text riffs off Clement Moore’s poem ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (“It was a cold, wintry night, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring … except a small mouse!”) across die-cut pages filled with winter and holiday images (wreath and garland, mittens, cookies, and more). The die-cuts offer peeks, reveals, and delightful surprises with each page turn. The illustrations, rendered in Ehlert’s trademark style in which color and shape become artistic media, move beyond the season’s traditional red and green palette to a spectrum that shines with bright pink, magenta, gold, and purple. After viewing the fresh snow and a rotund snowman through a window, the mouse enjoys a sweet snack and is tucked into a mitten bed before the sack-toting, red-suited visitor notices the plundered cookie plate. Lois Ehlert died in 2021; the late Wisconsin artist’s holiday vision is a gift for young children. ©2023 Cooperative Children’s Book Center