The Tallest Tree House

February 15, 2019
Mip and Pip, two woodland fairies of drastically different dispositions, hold a contest to see which of them can build "the best tree house by sundown."The sprites' physical and temperamental differences propel this familiar grasshopper-ant-style story. Mip sings loudly, has a flamboyant, flouncy mushroom cap on her pate, and spirits quickly about the forest looking for action. Pip reads architecture books quietly by himself, has an elongated green bud extending elegantly from his head, and deliberately plans. Yet they're unquestionably best friends. Thought clouds show just how differently the friends think: Mip dreams up a colorful treehouse towering with turrets and flapping flags, while Pip pictures cornices and cupolas sketched out meticulously under typeset headers. When Mip's overreaching, slapdash treehouse predictably teeters and falls, a timeless moral shines through the wreckage: Thoughtful planning and diligence pay off. Lesser stories stop here, but these fairies persevere together, connecting the remains of Mip's house with Pip's to make an astounding treehouse that combines both their visions. Young readers glean that antithetical personalities can work beautifully together and that contrapuntal viewpoints can produce an amazing synthesis. MacKay's backlit dioramas, suffused with watery colors, glow gauzily. Moss greens and dawn pinks conjure the light-skinned fairies' forest, a place that feels both familiar and faraway. Sweetly offers essential, timely lessons about aligning with those different from oneself. (Picture book. 4-8)

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May 10, 2019

PreS-Gr 1-Competition becomes cooperation when the tallest tree house isn't the winner in this formulaic tale about two tiny fairies engaged in a building contest. Mip, the instigator of the competition, looks rather like the main character of MacKay's Beach Baby. She's simply sketched, barefoot, and wearing a peach-toned jumpsuit with two pompoms on its front. Her prominent feature is an enormous red mushroom, all spotted in beige, snugly encasing her head. Her gauzy wings are often hardly visible. One day, Mip encounters her best friend Pip, who is reading a book on architecture. Excited by the idea of building something, Mip throws out the tree house challenge. "Whoever makes the best tree house by sundown wins!" Pip is a more cautions sort. He's dressed in green with a long bud on his head-no doubt related to his name. He has flowing leaf-shaped wings and boots on his feet. While Mip sets about chopping and whacking and sticking up a tall tower, he works on sketching his building plan. The art is a fine blend of collage and painting on beautifully shaded pages. There are fun details to discover in the pictures that are not mentioned in the text. The contest runs into an afternoon thunderstorm, tumbling Mip's tower and leaving Pip with a stuck wing. The two friends are first of all concerned about one another. Once Mip frees Pip they wait out the storm. Then "with Mip's vision and imagination and Pip's careful planning they came up with a new set of blueprints in no time." There's a bit of an audience problem here. The architecture and tree house ideas will be mope meaningful to slightly older readers. The very young looking characters and simple narrative seem more like kindergarten and late preschool stuff. Still, MacKay has gained fans with earlier books, and the explicit lessons about friendship will be appreciated by parents and teachers. VERDICT A possible addition for early makers and fans of tree and/or fairy houses.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston

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