FARMER BROWN SHEARS HIS SHEEP

It’s baaaaad news for the sheep when Farmer Brown (The Thing That Bothered Farmer Brown, 1995) brings out the shears. (“Clip-clip, buzz-buzz, / He took their wool and left them fuzz.”) Oblivious to the shorn and shivering flock trotting along behind, Farmer Brown cheerfully hauls away bags of fleece to be washed, carded, spun, and dyed. (“From fleece to yarn, it stretched and changed— / ‘Baaa!’ they cried. ‘Our wool looks strange!’ ”) Only when the sheep nerve themselves to snatch the skeins does Farmer Brown become aware of their plight and, proving himself as adept with knitting needles as with those shears, he fashions brightly colored cardigans for all. (Picture the shivering sheep standing on the porch, serving as spool for the threads of yarn.) Like several books, from Tomie dePaola’s Charlie Needs a Cloak (1973) to Robyn Eversole’s Red Berry Wool (1999), this will give readers at least a sense of how wool gets from sheep to sweater. But with Sloat’s frisky rhymed text and Westcott’s sunny watercolor cartoons, it’s even more clearly a breezy lesson in compassion. (Picture book. 5-7)