STUFF AND NONSENSE

A team of mice, all similarly round-faced, goggle-eyed and buck-toothed, carry a dizzying variety of construction materials through a mousehole and outside: There’s furry stuff, yellow stuff, wavy stuff, woolly stuff and more, all moving from left to right in a continuous line. Colors are high-contrast, and where appropriate, touch-and-feel elements are inserted into the page. The paper engineering is kept to a minimum, with the exception of a stunning page turn that finds the team of mice actually carrying a ladder (shiny stuff) through the mousehole and a concluding tableau that finds the workers standing proudly in front of their new Mouse House. If the narration is less than smooth and the main characters Stuff and Nonsense indistinguishable from the mob, no matter—this is all about the visuals anyway. (Pop-up/picture book. 2-5)