Joining Henkes' Kitten's First Full Moon [BKL F 1 04] and Mo Willems' pigeon duet is another graphically minimalist yet utterly effective picture book for the very young. "Snug inside her warm den, a polar bear cub wakes. Something in the moonlit stillness quietly beckons. What is it?" The tug of this gentle mystery will draw children into Thompson's simple bedtime story, and the hypnotic ebb and flow of her alliterative lines (on a night that's "keen and cold," little cub "sets out for the snow and sky and sea and ice") will keep children immersed as the young explorer encounters floating, dreaming sea creatures, and witnesses a meteor shower that further transforms the already exotic nighttime surroundings. As arresting as Thompson's language are Savage's powerful linocuts, which beautifully reference the textures and forms of Inuit stone carvings and evoke the arctic landscape in a few elemental colors per spread: glacial blues, grays, and sea greens; the pinks and lavenders of the aurora borealis. Like Henkes' kitten and Willems' pigeon, little cub harks back to an earlier, more technologically constrained era of bookmaking, when enduring classics were born of well-honed writing and thoughtful design rather than easy, glitzy effects. Jennifer Mattson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved