Halloween Week, Day 3: Hello, everybody! Our book today is Boo To You! by Lois Ehlert, a story about some tricky mice, told with harvest-themed collage art.

The mice are setting up for their harvest dinner with their friends Squirrel and Racoon, but they are all frightened that the cat (a meat-eater) will find out and crash the party. So all together, they use their autumn vegetables to create a scary costume to frighten the cat off.

This book definitely had a different art style, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, the use of different autumnal veggies, squash and other harvestables in the collages to create the animals is neat, and the fact that the veggies are all identified in a glossary at the end is cool, because readers can go back and try to identify them page-by-page. But, to be frank, the overall effect of the collages is underwhelming. The color scheme is going for autumnal but just looks sort of dingy. The story itself is okay, but doesn’t really stand up to the much bolder visuals. The length is fine for baby bookworms, and JJ sat through it, but this one sort of left us feeling a bit “meh.” Still, we had no major issues with it, and other readers might enjoy it more, so we will technically call this one Baby Bookworm approved.