PreS-Gr 1 In this wordless picture book, a fox enters a small town, looking for shelter. She is chased away by villagers but eventually finds refuge in an abandoned greenhouse. A little boy finds the fox and gives her and her newborn pups a basket of food. The fox family then returns the kindness by planting a magical garden inside the boy's room while he sleeps. The story is brief and simple enough for toddlers, but the beauty of its artwork will capture a much wider audience. Camcam's cut-paper illustrations add to the mystical elements of the work. The boy's bedroom is particularly impressive, with three-dimensional furniture and detailed toys; every item in the room looks as fragile and delicate as the wonderful magic that the fox has given to the boy. The panoramic style of the pictures makes this title ideal for a lap-sit storytime, and it will be a delight to read and to share. Peter Blenski, Greenfield Public Library, WI

On wide, wordless pages, a fox leaves a snowy wood, looking for a warm spot near a little boy's cozy home, but his parents try to shoo it away. Undaunted, the rusty-red fox settles for the nearby greenhouse, and when the kind, inquisitive boy goes to check on the animal, he discovers that she has had a litter of kits. He quietly leaves them a basket of food and returns home to climb back in bed, but the mama fox and her babies remember his kindness, and before they go back to the woods, they leave a towering bouquet of flowers from the greenhouse on his bedroom floor. The sweet story is carried along by Camcam's gorgeous, intricate cut-paper dioramas, all of which are delicately highlighted with minimal, thin blue-ink strokes on snowy white paper and warmly lit from within. The careful lighting in each photographed illustration adds a remarkable depth of field, leaving corners of the woods in shadow and the houses suffused with glowing, pale orange light. A dreamy story perfect for bedtime.

While his parents show only disdain, a boy is intrigued by a fox who takes up residence in the family's greenhouse. Later, the boy's quiet act of kindness yields an unexpected reward. With invitingly short and wide dimensions, this wordless book from France stands out for its exceptional, inventively lit illustrations of one snowy evening.