WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY!

A childhood idyll from a well-known German author (Rabbit Spring, 1990). Peter's ""adventure"" is a day spent exploring and enjoying the countryside--seeing a fish leap in the stream he hops over, eating wild blackberries, imagining a bear in cloud formations. Secure, independent, imaginative, curious, observant--Peter is what every child should be. MÃœller captures the intensity of his perceptions in lucent paintings combining the sharply observed detail of the natural life that catches Peter's attention with open vistas that dramatize his sense of freedom. Some of the details here are European, notably a very tall ""hunting stand"" that the little boy clambers up, but it doesn't really matter. Quiet, but refreshing as a summer breeze.