MINE, ALL MINE

A wintertime fable about greed. When a “huge, glistening snowflake” lands on Little Squirrel’s nose, Big, Bigger and Biggest Squirrels all have ideas of how to play with it. “But it’s MINE!” shouts Little Squirrel, and he builds himself a twig bunker so he can admire it all by himself. After a happy night with his treasure, he hears his family playing and gets a little wistful, finally deciding to give the snowflake up. Pasqualotto’s red squirrels are all sinuous line and bushy tail. The snowflake is aggressively sparkly, and its integration into the illustrations is often awkward—particularly as any child who’s ever tried to catch a snowflake knows that it’s impossible to cuddle one all night. What could have been a meditation on impermanence becomes instead just another message-heavy story about sharing. Ho-hum. (Picture book. 3-5)