Soaked!

“Look at all this rain” reads the first page of Cushman’s impressive debut. Digitally finished pencil drawings show the gloomiest of days: stubborn-looking gray clouds hang in the sky, which is streaked with rain. A saturated badger, bunny, and hula-hooping moose—each one eccentrically imagined and rendered with lovely texturing—look appropriately dour, but none of them can match their comrade, a bear, who narrates, for Eeyore-ness. (And who can blame the bear, given that the rain has ruined its ice cream cone?) The path to happiness is circuitous and includes mordantly funny scenes involving the bear’s tight, stuffy cave (where the moose’s hula-hooping takes up way too much space) and a mysteriously missing umbrella (though readers will know instantly who swiped it). But eventually this misbegotten quartet—the bear most of all—discovers the joys of rainy day puddle splashing while hula-hooping. “Look at all this rain,” Cushman reprises, this time adding an exuberant “Everyone is SOAKED!” Visually elegant and character-driven to the hilt, this book makes the familiar make-lemonade story feel as fresh as the outdoors after a summer shower. Ages 3–7. [em]Agent: Kendra Marcus, BookStop Literary. (July) [/em]