The Mole Sisters and Wavy Wheat

It is always delightful to see good new books for children, and I believe that the "Mole Sisters" will become nursery classics. The illustration of the entire series is exquisite--simple, yet vivid and witty. The prose is spare, with each word perfectly chosen, and room for parent-child extended discussion of the action. The characters are charming, likeable, confident, and optimistic without being in any way saccharine. My daughter was given several of the Mole Sisters books as a 2nd birthday present, since which I have bought the others for ourselves, and have bought all of them, many times over, as gifts for other children. My daughter, now 3, began reading to herself at a very early age, and these were among the first books that she read alone. My two younger children are also choosing these over and over again to have read to them. Because of the gently philosophical subject matter of the books they are also entirely suitable for slightly older children, who will easily master the text, but who will then have questions about the topics raised. My advice is: get them all. If you don't want to take the risk, then get one--frankly, at this price you can afford to take a chance--and I'm sure that you'll want the others. They are all wonderful, although my own favourite (by a small margin)is "Wavy Wheat".