THE MISSING MITTEN MYSTERY

Kellogg (Give the Dog a Bone, see above, etc.) remakes his Mystery of the Missing Red Mitten (1974) into a larger, longer, and more colorful ramble through snow-covered landscapes. Suddenly aware that she’s short a mitten after a long day of play, Annie sets off on a frantic hunt. Her panic gives way to joie de vivre, though, as she finds articles of clothing left in the snow by her playmates, builds fantasies about where her mitten might have gotten to, and thinks about planting a mitten tree, so she’ll always have mittens to give away. In the wide-angle illustrations, a low winter sun sheds buttery light over rolling hills, snowdrifts, the wandering child, and her serious-looking dog. Any reader who has ever worried about getting in trouble for losing something will be drawn into Annie’s search—which ends joyfully, after a brief rain shower washes her snowman’s outer layer away to expose the red “heart” within. The plot and pictures have undergone considerable change, but this is still suffused with Kellogg’s characteristic warmth and charm and all the better for being easier to read to a group. (Picture book. 5-7)