SMILE!

When her mom says no to more cookies, chipper little Sunny loses her smile and searches the whole house hoping to get it back. She peers under the bed, sifts through the couch and questions poor Glittergills the goldfish. Even with a small, down-turned mouth Sunny remains cute as a button, and her percolating narration bounces readers from page to page. Wonderfully imperfect hand-lettered sections of text help evoke the high-pitched voice of a small girl. Charming, Lauren Child–like multimedia spreads pop with punchy colors, quirky diagrams and annotations. Sunny might have churned out the illustrations herself, bent over a kitchen table determined to tell her story. Readers learn that in scouring her home, Sunny inadvertently does quite a bit of good work: She cleans up her room, feeds Glittergills, finds Daddy’s lost flip-flop and ends up quietly playing cards with Mr. Honeycomb, the family dog. Sunny’s mother beams, lavishes her with praise and...Found it! Hodgkinson’s vivid artwork and story capture the colorful, intricate and comedic inner workings of a child’s imagination. (Picture book. 2-6)