Purple Little Bird

Foley's (Willoughby & the Moon) friendly cartoon illustrations and spare text deliver his grass-is-greener moral without ambiguity. The story starts out engagingly, as Purple Little Bird knocks himself out baking purple cookies, adjusting picture frames, and repairing the plumbing to make his purple little house "perfect." But the dissatisfied bird soon leaves, in search of a house that's even better, "a truly perfect place." He rejects Brown Bear's cave ("It's too dark!"), Gray Goat's steep cliff ("It's too windy!"), and Yellow Camel's desert ("It's too dusty"), circling the globe until he stumbles upon his own purple little house again. Now he sees it with fresh eyes: "It's much too purple!" he says, and sets about painting it with the colors he's seen during his journey. Purple Little Bird is oddly driven, a critical overachiever of the sort that more often provides the target for picture book humor rather than its hero. Nonetheless, Foley's big, loose black lines and off-register swaths of color provide warmth and a consistently cheerful energy%E2%80%94above all, this is a cry for moderation in all things. Ages 4%E2%80%937. (May)