NUTMEG

Countering the raft of cautionary stories about the hazards of reckless wishing, this topsy-turvy tale suggests that sometimes the results are...delectable. Weary of her unvarying daily diet of cardboard for breakfast, string for lunch and sawdust for supper, young Nutmeg strolls down to a rubble-strewn shore one day. There she uncorks a huge blue genie who pressures her into wishing for something different for each meal, then presents her with a magic spoon. That night the hyperactive implement not only whips up a tasty feast for Nutmeg and her two doll-like housemates, it whips the entire house and its contents into a sailing ship, then whips the entire junky wasteland in which she lives into a calm, sunny sea with breakfast waiting on an enticing islet nearby. Readers’ imaginations will soar along with Nutmeg’s as bursts of color transform her dreary world with promises of adventures, culinary and otherwise, to come. (Picture book. 6-8)