THE SHOPPING EXPEDITION

Leaving dad to paint the kitchen, a child trails her mom, little Harry and Wilf the Wonderdog out to the grocery store in this enticing invitation to take the long way ’round. Not even their car’s breakdown stops these determined shoppers: On they forge, battling heavy rain and snow, trekking up a steep mountain, through thick jungle—“Mom saved us from the snakes. Wilf saved us from the crocodiles. I saved us from the cheeky monkeys”—and desert, down a river and all the way across the sea. Using a bright palette and energetic brushstrokes, Amstutz portrays the expedition, stroller and all, blithely coping with one challenge after another as they traverse a succession of land- and seascapes before washing up at last on a coastal store that, happily, stays open after dark. And the trip home is accomplished with the turn of a final page—a perfect ending for a child’s transformation of a common errand into a decidedly uncommon outing. (Picture book. 6-8)