Bruce Degen (1945–2024)

This book has some of the most amazingly vibrant, inventive, original, and mouthwatering pictures I've ever seen. Willow loves to look at the pictures now, and I can only imagine that as she gets older we'll spend lots of time talking about all the different berries, food disguised as plants (waffle lilies surrounded by pats of butter...jam roll flowers decorating a strawberry jam skating rink), and silly animals (elephants skating on said jam). The nonsensical language is also great--this show more is an excellent example of a book that you just MUST sing and dance to as you read it. As silly as it is, the language is also very smart: I appreciate the plays on word combinations, and certain parts are definitely a tongue twister to read. This is a book that, while short in length, will certainly be long in usage...we will be reading, experiencing, and playing with this book for years. show less

They're off... a boy and an endearing, rhyme-spouting bear, who squires him through a fantastic world of berries. And their adventure comes to a razzamatazz finale under a starberry sky.

When the potion-brewing Little Witch receives her grandmother's book of magic secrets by special goblin delivery, she is eager to dive in. But the book itself is locked, and can only be opened by solving the accompanying riddle: "Find a Handful of Laughter, Find a Handful of Tears, Then a Helping Hand Leads, To What Everyone Needs." Can the Little Witch figure it out? Can her friend, Otto Ogre, help her to see the answer...?

Better known these days, for his role as co-creator (together with show more Joanna Cole) of The Magic School Bus series, Bruce Degen delivers a sweet little witchy chapter-book in The Little Witch and the Riddle, originally published in 1980. The magical narrative accoutrements here are fun, but the real focus is on the friendship between Little Witch and Otto Ogre, and the lesson that the Little Witch learns, regarding the importance of friendship, and working together. Ideally suited to those beginning readers looking for gentler witchy fare! show less

We've been reading this to the kid since birth, but she's really getting into it at around 20 months. Fun, lots of good detail, doesn't really get old for me. Although my theory about how the book is actually the kid's hallucination from eating poisonous berries is getting pretty elaborate.