BOOLAR'S BIG DAY OUT

The five dolls from The Countess's Calamity (2003) are back in the second installment of Gardner's series. It's getting to be autumn in the park and the mice are frantically storing food for the winter. There's just a little time left in the "betwixt and between time" and the mice enlist the help of their befuddled doll friends, Boolar, Countess, Ting Tang, and Quilt. Seems they are quite cozy in their new box and do not understand why Jack Frost has to come at all. But when Boolar, the best food gatherer, joins a puppet troupe to take the place of a missing Tom Thumb, food gathering is thwarted and the little group's survival looks bleak indeed. Though Boolar is only supposed to stay away a day or two, it is soon clear that he is falling in love with the theater and with his leading lady. Will he stay with his new puppet friends or will he return to the park and help his old friends prepare for Jack Frost's arrival? When Boolar realizes his fiancÉe has strings attached, both figuratively and literally, he comes to his senses and arranges an apology that solves all the mouse problems. With generous font, ample white space, and charming pencil drawings on most pages, this is a series young readers can latch onto. (Fiction. 8-12)