ON THE HILL

Camille and Franzi live—unbeknownst to one another—on opposite sides of a hill. They love their little homes and their animals, but they pine: Camille for some dancing and intelligent conversation, Franzi for song and bedtime stories. They find one another, but also find that their respective homes are too small for all and sundry. They are canny folk, though, and figure out a benign form of nuclear fusion: They take apart their domiciles and combine them. This is not just about two souls who find one another. Jahn-Clough has managed to evoke an unspecified time and place that feels very old and yet abiding and comforting—rendering it in a primitive style of art that makes the most of rolling hills and gladdening colors—a sort of idealized Eastern European rural life, minus all the toil and everyday grief. Somehow, it makes you feel that everything is going to be all right. (Picture book. 3-7)