FINDERS KEEPERS?

A warm red scarf lies at the center of this clever and deceptively simple winter picture book. In Lost. Found. by Marsha Diane Arnold and illustrated by Matthew Cordell, the two titular words are repeated over and over again as the story progresses, and readers must pay close attention to the details in Cordell's charming pen-and-ink-with-watercolor art, where the true story unfolds. When bear loses his cozy red scarf in the cold winter breeze, it finds and loses several other woodland animal successors, each time being reinvented to serve many a varied purpose--hat! rope swing! trampoline!--along the way. But trouble ensues when all the animals try to claim the scarf for their own and it becomes unraveled. Can they possibly put it back together and discover a way for all the animals to use it together? 

This delightfully inventive picture book is wonderful to share with preschoolers through first graders in a group, but even more so in a one-on-one setting, where they will have the chance to really pore over all the finer details of this lovely story. Either way it's the perfect find.