The New Sweater

April 16, 2012
First in a planned series, Jeffers’s (Stuck) small-scale fable is equal parts whimsy and skinny-tie sophistication. Low-key pencil drawings, sleek typography, and a smart layout deliver the sophistication, and the Hueys contribute the whimsy. Like the crowd-pleasing minions in the film Despicable Me, the Hueys are egg-shaped beings who speak in monosyllables (“eh?” “oh!”) and enjoy a genial if colorless existence. “The thing about the Hueys... was that they were all the same,” writes Jeffers. Then a Huey named Rupert subverts the social contract by knitting a bright orange sweater with a zigzag pattern. Appalled, the other Hueys glare at Rupert as he walks past in his sweater, whistling nonchalantly. Soon the rest of the Hueys start knitting sweaters, too: “Before long, they were all different, and no one was the same anymore.” It takes yet another daring sartorial move by Rupert to lead the Hueys to authentic individuality at last. The story is over almost as soon as it has begun, a polite salute to liberated thinking that delivers its message with a feather-light touch. Ages 3–7.

April 15, 2012
The clothes make the Huey in Jeffers' picture-book ode to nonconformity. In what promises to be the first in a series about the Hueys, little egg-shaped creatures with just lines for limbs, the cast of characters are indistinguishable from one another until a fellow named Rupert knits himself an orange sweater. The text plainly states that "most of the other Hueys were horrified!" when Huey strolls by in his jaunty new duds. And the subsequent line, "Rupert stood out like a sore thumb," is delightfully understated, since his oval form wrapped up in an orange sweater looks rather sore-thumb-like. Then, another Huey named Gillespie decides that "being different was interesting," and he knits himself a sweater just like Rupert's. This gets the proverbial ball of yarn rolling, and, in scenes reminiscent of The Sneetches, soon many, many Hueys are knitting and donning identical orange sweaters in order to "be different too!" In Jeffers' expert hands, the message of respecting individuality comes through with a light touch as Rupert concludes the story by deciding to shake things up again as he dons a hat. "And that changed everything," reads the closing text, with a page turn revealing a little parade of Hueys decked out in a broad array of different clothing, from feather boas to pirate hats. A joyful take on a serious lesson. (Picture book. 3-6)

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Starred review from May 15, 2012
Preschool-G *Starred Review* Jeffers (Stuck, 2011) introduces a whole species of egg-shaped, stick-limbed things called Hueys (think of them as animated personifications of Malvina Reynolds' little boxes made of ticky-tacky), who were all identical and indistinguishable and just fine with that, thank you very much. Then, in a day that will go down in Huey history, a Huey named Rupert knits himself a lovely orange sweater. As much as he loves his new sweater and wears it everywhere he goes, not everyone is so keen on it: Didn't he know that the thing about Hueys was that they were all the same? But Rupert's pal Gillespie thinks being different is kind of neat, so he knits himself an identical orange sweater, and all of a sudden the other Hueys think these guys might be onto something. While parents might get the biggest chuckle out of the more restrained bits of humor, the big joke is by no means out of reach for little funny bones: Before long, they were all different, and no one was the same anymore, the text reads, floating above a scene of endless Hueys all decked out in spiffy orange sweaters. The spare but adorable artwork makes this picture book work as a quirky diversion, but it doesn't diminish the understated, deftly delivered lesson for those moments when kids need a nudge to help be themselves, or be OK when everyone else wants to be just like them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)