ROSIE’S ROSES

Having done with the letters C, F, and S, Edwards and Cole offer an alliterative run of R to cheer a story of graceful, if unintentional, gift-giving. Rosie the raccoon and her brother Robert are on their way to their Aunt Ruth’s house. Rosie has a clutch of four roses to give her aunt. As they ramble along, Rosie notices she is missing one. Robert thinks perhaps the rat they just passed might have picked it up. Indeed he has—“Rogue,” cries Rosie—but she also notices that it lights up his dank quarters, so she leaves it as a gift. As the two gambol their way to Aunt Ruth’s, they manage to drop all the roses, and all the roses are picked up by deserving souls: a robin bringing some gaiety to her sick husband, a rabbit offering balm to his frazzled wife, a bride about to be married without a garland for her hair. Rosie will call them rapscallions and rascals before she learns the situation. So sweet a soul is Rosie, that readers will agree with Aunt Ruth when she tells Rosie, “you’re my prize rose.” A sensitive little tale that teaches by clear example, kept on the light side with Cole’s gladdening artwork and all those repeat letters: if it isn’t “rowdy rabbit children romping everywhere,” it’s “a rumor that Mr. Robin has raging strep throat.” Really rewarding. (Picture book. 3-6)