Carl's Nose
PreSchool-Grade 2–A dog with a nose for bad weather lives at the foot of Old Man Mountain. The mountain keeps the weather worse than bad, but Grimsville can depend on The Carl Report for accurate forecasts. Suddenly and inexplicably, Old Man Mountain took a sudden fancy to sunshine, and Carl's predictions are all wrong. However, when Tiny Norman gets lost in the forest, the dog finds his new calling as the sole proprietor of The Nose Knows Detective Agency. The gouache and watercolor illustrations evoke the North Woods, from the profusion of plaid to the bears, dogs, moose, and ever-present pine trees and gum boots. However, Big Marie, the hippopotamus who runs the cafe, is clearly from warmer climes. Clever listeners and readers will delight in the tiny details such as newspaper headlines and menu boards. Appropriately for the subject matter, noses appear from all angles in the pictures. Prose that begs to be read aloud abounds: from the aroma of cumulus congestus to pungent peril and malodorous risk. This book's inviting illustrations, great vocabulary, and search-and-rescue mission will make it a hit at storytime.–Rita Hunt Smith, Hershey Public Library, PACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.