Book Review: Elusive Moose

River and I are avid library goers (ALA | Campaign for America's Libraries). We're there AT LEAST twice a week, sometimes as often as every-other-day! River is a big fan of preschool story time and I love playing Scrabble with the older folks.

Part of our library habit includes checking out a certain number of things once per week: 2 child-friendly CD's, (at least) 1 adult nonfiction book, 1 adult fiction book, and 3 board books.

This week I was particularly impressed by Elusive Moose, by Joan Gannij and Clare Beaton.

Front Cover

The book features pictures of mixed media (mostly felt and embroidery) art. It identifies multiple woodland animals with a hidden moose on every page. There are no pronouns or any other identification of sex/gender other than the fact that the main moose has antlers.

Random page

I think that the part of me that wants to live in a cabin or yurt in the woods is what really draws me to this book. I also love all the pictured textures and the creativity that must have gone into making the original art.

My only wish is that this book came as a felt or soft book. While it would definitely need to be simplified (no buttons or sequins), it would be fantastic to be able to feel all the pictured textures. A soft book would also be great to guard against my child's voracious apatite for eating board books when I'm not looking >.<

In conclusion, Five Stars! Two Thumbs Up! Bravo! Buy this book or borrow it from your library!