MOOSE TRACKS!

Overlaid with hoofprints, but also filled floor to ceiling with clutter and bric-a-brac, Davis’s full-bleed domestic scenes furnish a backdrop to an unseen narrator’s mystified rhyme, as an array of wildlife looks on: “There are wood chips in my guest bed, / but a beaver spent the night. / He got hungry, and the bedpost / looked so good, he took a bite. / Wood chips, I remember. / But who left all these moose tracks?” Young readers will be on tenterhooks to find out—but neither writer nor illustrator provides a clue to the culprit. Until the final scene, that is, when the complainer finally puts in an appearance, sporting both antlers and an air of injured innocence—“Why, look at me—I AM a moose / and I don’t make a mess!” Yeah, right. Neat freaks and most parents will be eager to share this breezy outing with the slobs in their lives. (Picture book. 6-8)