MOOSEKITOS

For a third time, Moose’s mammoth and magnificent moostache comes in handy when disaster impends. Moose’s call may bring together relatives to Moose Lodge from as far away as Moosechusetts and Moossissippi, but before he can even get a collective picture, they’re wandering off to bike, hike, swim, or bicker. How to get them back together? It looks like a lost cause—until, that is, clouds of fierce-looking moosquitos arrive. Cole dresses his Bullwinkle-ish vacationers in casual clothes and endows them with a variety of hairdos—but Moose’s outsized handlebars top even his wife’s towering bouffant, and with the help of plenty of glue, provide the raw material for a quick, if confining, moosquito net. A “perfectly perfect” reunion, at last. Relentless wordplay, not to mention the fundamentally screwy premise, will keep young readers heartily amoosed. (Picture book. 6-8)