Holey Moley

September 28, 2015
Ehlert (Scraps) gives readers a mole's-eye-view of the subterranean life in this multilayered exploration of the natural world. The cheeky narratorâa gray cut-paper mole with giant purple claws and a furry outline created with pinking shearsâmakes its entrance via die-cut circles in the book's cover and first page ("See this hole? I dug it. I'm a mole"). From there, it digs through an elaborate series of tunnels, moving from the lawn to a neatly planted vegetable garden; along the way, the mole passes numerous brightly colored worms squiggling around in the mottled dirt, but seeks out more delectable fare ("Eating earthworms is OK, but not every day"). Ehlert's cut-paper critters and objects come together in a harmonious symphony of textures, shapes, and rich colors (the mole tunnels are a vibrant red, contrasting starkly with the dark, fibrous paper used for the dirt), and the mole's narration reads like a series of excited, extemporaneous rhymes. End pages that identify and briefly discuss various garden-variety bugs conclude this energetic book on an educational note. Ages 4â8.

July 15, 2015
Deploying her signature graphics, Ehlert digs into familiar turf, depicting a vegetable garden whose pests are handily dispatched by a resident mole. Mole narrates a staccato, rhyming text that matches her dine-and-dash lifestyle. She eats beneficial organisms like earthworms but also often devours such destructive infiltrators as the tomato hornworm and the cabbage caterpillar. Ehlert's reductive paper collages depict Mole's habitat as a vibrant scarlet tunnel threading an underground teeming with insects, worms, and the roots of neatly labeled, rapidly growing vegetables. Mole is cut (with pinking shears!) of fibrous gray paper and sports bright pink forefeet, tail, and snout. Angleworms are amusingly represented as red zigzags, and moths, worms, and grubs masquerade as facial features for the sun and several phases of the moon. The garden's season is a strong visual theme. A seed potato sprouts and grows tubers and leaves (with Mole neatly nipping an infestation of potato beetles); the plant's impressive underground bounty fans out across a double spread. As the garden grows, so does Mole: "my burrow seems small. Holey Moley! / I'm a fat fur ball." Reclining against a mountainous veggie harvest, Mole muses on a new-home search. Slyly, she addresses readers: "Do you think I could move in with you?" Crisp design, her hallmark typeface (Century Standard), and touches of whimsy combine for another delightful garden tour from Ehlert. (visual glossary of garden fauna) (Picture book. 4-8)

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October 1, 2015

K-Gr 2-A new picture book by Ehlert is always a cause for celebration. The light plot, told in rhyme, centers on a mole finding good things to eat in a garden-and like Ehlert's Feathers for Lunch (HMH, 1990), Scraps (S. & S., 2014), and others, the star of the show is the collage illustration. The eponymous mole, plus plants (with extensive root systems), butterflies, and other inhabitants of the garden, are illustrated entirely with cut-paper shapes, some in bright solid colors and some in multihued, textured pieces. Bold blue, orange, and purple backgrounds in the top sections of most pages provide sharp contrast with the brown and black soil underneath. Words are printed in white against these solid color backgrounds, in Ehlert's characteristic large, easy-to-read serif font, sometimes in straight lines and sometimes following curves in the illustrations. Fans of Ehlert's work will recognize these features, but there's more for observant readers to discover here: worms crawling among the dirt form letters that collectively spell the phrase "worms are swell." A physical hole in the cover adds tactile interest. The final pages feature a labeled map of the mole's underground tunnels and an illustrated list of small, labeled pictures of creatures seen earlier in the book. VERDICT Sure to please longtime fans and create new interest in the artist's work.-Jill Ratzan, I. L. Peretz Community Jewish School, Somerset, NJ

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