Eeny, Meeny, Miney Mole

Description: Curious Eeny Mole emerges from her dark hole home to discover the world Up Above. Eeny, Meeny, and Miney Mole live at the bottom of a deep, dark hole. In that hole, dark is light, day is night, and summer and winter seem the same. Meeny and Miney are perfectly content to stay down in the deep, dark hole all by themselves, safe and warm. But Eeny has heard there's something wonderful Up Above. She wants to know what it is. So she goes to find it.

Brief description: The amazingly prolific Jane Yolen, has been called "America's Hans Christian Andersen." She is the distinguished author of over 300 books, including Fairy Tale Feasts, Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts, Owl Moon and Devil's Arithmetic. She lives on an old farm in western Massachusetts with numerous moles who do not seem to be afraid of anything. She enjoys taking walks along the river near her house and visiting people, including her editors--in fact, she wrote this book in the office of one of them.

Review Quotes: "Just as children often wonder about the earth beneath their feet, the littlest mole here sets out to discover the world 'Up Above.' When Eeny is told by her sisters that there is light as well as darkness, winter and summer too, she tries to imagine these concepts in familiar terms, envisioning light, for example, spreading like a blanket. Finally she burrows out of her hole and experiences spring. In its celebration of the duality and complexity of nature, Yolen's inventive text abounds with wisdom and humor--her imagery and linguistic skills lift the tale far above the ordinary. The older moles scold, 'Don't listen to addlepated centipedes'--using the kind of large, old-fashioned words children love to hear. When Eeny ponders things she has never seen, she thinks imagistically, like a poet: 'She wondered if light . . . touched in and out like the thread in the hem of a dress.' Brown's gracefully droll watercolors--more mature in technique than in her earlier Mule dred--portray the underworld with fanciful touches: an acorn serves as a doll's carriage, a jonquil becomes a periscope. The palette of befogged earth tones is complemented by scattered spots of luminescence when lanterns, fire and glass light up the underworld. Ages 4-8."