It's a Moose!
“a delightful take on the new baby trope . . .”
In a delightful take on the new baby trope, Meg Rosoff introduces us to a big sister who happily welcomes her new baby brother, even though he’s not what the family expected. “We were all expecting the usual sort of baby, so imagine our surprise. Instead of feet, he had four perfect hooves. And his nose!”
The story continues with the family completely accepting this unusual addition, in fact relishing Baby Moose’s uniqueness. “I felt sad for the other babies. They all looked the same.” It’s this whole-hearted acceptance of difference that gives the story its charm, along with Ercolini’s drolly funny illustrations of a moose among baby stuff, a moose at school, and a moose birthday party. Readers will love to pore over the many details and careful looking is richly rewarded in these pages.
As Baby Moose grows, though, inevitably it’s clear that his difference goes beyond how he looks. “The sshouse seemed too small. We seemed too small, too.” And here is where the big sister and her parents show how much they truly love Baby Moose (now Big Moose). A beautifully expressive double-page spread shows Moose sticking his head far out the attic window in the midst of the moonlit town, while the narrator says, “Night after night, our baby stayed in his room and sang. Some of his songs seemed sad. There was only one thing to do.” A few pages later, another evocative double-page spread shows Moose in his new home, one where his songs would be happy: “When we reached the mountains, our baby looked surprised. He sniffed the pine trees. He sniffed the clean air. He sniffed the twigs and weeds and the birds in the trees and the fish in the stream.”
A family who loves you knows what you need, even if that means saying goodbye. This charming book ends with a postcard from Baby Moose to “Mom, Dad, & Sis,” leaving the reader with a sense of a bond that is bigger than any single place. We know that Baby Moose will always be part of the family, no matter how different he is, no matter where he lives.