by Moe Zilla

Created on: April 19, 2010

"The Mitten" opens with a blonde-haired boy named Nicki who wants a pair of snow-white mittens. "If you drop one in the snow, you'll never find it," warns his grandmother Baba, though she finally agrees to knit them for him. But she promises she'll be checking every time he comes home to see if he's still wearing his snow-white mittens. And by page three, the mitten is lost in the snow - and it's snatched up by an appreciative mole!

It was early in Jan Brett's career, but this story already shows her exploring the same realistic "old world" fairy tales that she'd use later in "Trouble with Trolls" and "Gingerbread Baby". This story is based on a Ukranian Folktale, and Brett even dedicates the story "with special thanks to my Ukrainian friend, Oksana Piaseckyj." But it also includes a forest full of carefully-drawn animals - including what may be the first appearance of the plucky hedgehog she used in her later books!

The mole was tired from tunneling through the snow, and decides the mitten makes a warm, cozy place to sleep. Soon he's joined by a snowshoe rabbit, and then the snuffling hedgehog. The woolen mitten stretches to accommodate the animals, and amazingly there's even room for a passing owl. Then a badger joins them, and then a red fox, and even an enormous brown bear.

In a funny twist, the last straw is a tiny mouse, which curls up on the end of the bear's nose. This tickle's the bear's nose, which makes him sneeze, shooting the mitten up into the sky - and scattering animals in every direction. Then Nicki spots his lost mitten dropping down from the sky, and he reaches his hand up to catch it as it falls. But the book's punchline appears in a wordless silent drawing. The boy's mother sees that he still has both his mittens - but that one of them has been stretched many times its original size!

Jan Brett is a fun illustrator, and her books always include a special feature. There's "bonus" illustrations in the margin of each page, showing what the other characters are doing while the main story progresses. As Nicki searches for his mittens, he passes over each animal just before they find their way to his cozy missing mitten. The rabbit is shown in a log, and the hedgehog hides in a snow-covered bush, while the owl watches Nicki from a hole at the top of a hollow tree.

And each "bonus" illustration is surrounded by a mitten-shaped frame!

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