MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB

It all starts rather familiarly: “Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.” But when the lamb follows Mary to school, the old story gets a detour. The lamb (a small, woolly finger-puppet attached to the book by a ribbon) peeks through windows and sneaks into classrooms in a effort to be reunited with Mary. Flaps add to the action, as does the finger-puppet (especially because the lamb is not represented in the illustrations for the detour); a super-colossal fold-out page caps the story, allowing the lamb to park on a piece of Velcro and join Mary in class. This is a playground as well as a story, and it certainly is a literal way to get immersed in a book. Hurt-Newton’s artwork is enticing, the paint as thick and rich as frosting. (Picture book. 3-5)