Yeti and the Bird

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 9 FEB 2015

Yeti looks ferocious, with his magnificently shaggy white fur and pinprick eyes, so everyone left him alone. The local foxes and raccoons never suspect that Yeti was lonely. The solitary sasquatch sits on a log and directs his ghostly gaze into a subalpine pool. He stops brooding when a rotund red bird, who has misread her migration map, crash-lands on his head and guffaws a silly Sqwalka-sqwalka at his angry roar. Before long, the two are playing on a makeshift seesaw Yeti calling out a happy Graaah! and singing sweet, sad songs together, which soothed the forest to sleep. Shireen (Hey, Presto) sets a foreboding scene with silhouettes of midnight blue and evergreen against permafrost hues of lichen. Yeti s coat suggests the coming winter, and the red-orange bird is the brightest presence on the pages. By the time the bird continues south, however, friendship melts the icy tension. Yeti s fellow animals, who witnessed his kindness, feel emboldened to approach him. Although Shireen tells a customary tale of an odd couple, her appealing Yeti is well worth getting to know. Ages 4 8.