THE LITTLE HOUSE BY THE SEA

Much as their details differ, this might be described as the British version of Albert's Alejandro's Gift (above). The roofless old stone cottage here has been taken over by rabbits, sparrows, gulls, sheep, and a stray cat; there's even a seal at water's edge. After a thorough renovation, they're all excluded by tight windows and walls, but fortunately the new human owner gets lonely, adopts the cat, and makes the other animals welcome with a bird feeder, a sheep shelter, and a poetically live-and- let-live policy toward mice and rabbits. Blathwayt's art, too, is very similar in style to Sylvia Long's; each evokes a distinctive region in the kind of meticulous, lovingly rendered detail that makes readers long to go there. The two books make a nice pair. (Picture book. 3-8)