Milo wants a story, but his busy mother sends him to play in the snow instead. Miffed, he starts following a set of tiny mouse tracks beneath the bird feeder. As he picks up clues (a feather, a fish's skeleton), asks questions ("Who had dug beneath the snow?"), and knits together his observations, he makes up a tale all on his own. And he's not the only storyteller out there: the observant mouse responsible for the tracks is the protagonist of its own exciting drama--it must get a juicy red winterberry home without being eaten by a hawk. Woodruff's (A Quieter Story) spare, evocative text ("A cold wind crept beneath Milo's scarf") quietly amplifies her expansive watercolor, pen-and-ink, and colored pencil drawings, which alternate between highly distilled snowy scenes and lushly detailed spreads; in one scene, the mouse scampers past a closely packed herd of velvety brown deer foraging for acorns. It's a richly narrative landscape--one that should inspire readers to venture outside and notice stories of their own. Ages 4--8. Agent: Andrea Cascardi, Transatlantic Agency. (Nov.)

Milo's mother has no time to read him a story, so he goes outdoors. Snow has fallen, covering the hills, fields, and woods around their home. As he walks, he notices animal tracks and traces in the snow. Following a mouse's paw-print trail, he discovers more clues and imagines the animals' activities: a feather in a bush (a flock of birds ascending), hemlock branches on the ground (porcupines nibbling in the treetops), and a snowy trough running down the creek bank (river otters sliding toward the water). Later, turning the tables on his busy mother, Milo returns home with stories to tell her. During Milo's outdoor adventures, pairs of double-page illustrations set up puzzles and possible solutions. The first scene shows the boy making a discovery, while the next depicts the animal leaving the clue, a pattern that invites kids to predict each answer. In the outdoor scenes, expanses of snow set off the mixed-media illustrations' clean lines and forest colors very effectively. An inviting read-aloud choice for preschool and primary-grade units on animals in winter.

When a child's mother is too busy for stories, he follows some tracks in the snow and makes up his own. Milo's angry face as he stomps out the door speaks volumes about his disappointment. But it isn't long before he spies a mouse's tracks under the birdfeeder and begins a journey of discovery. At the winterberry bush, Milo observes that all the red berries are gone and finds a single feather; "What had happened here?" A page turn allows readers time to guess: A flock of cedar waxwings (identified on the endpapers along with tracks and a few animals that readers will have to look very closely to find) flies over the tiny mouse, a single red berry falling to the ground. This pattern repeats, with Milo finding fallen hemlock branches (porcupines), clods of dirt (grazing deer), a smooth trail to the creek (otters), and wing prints in the snow (a narrow miss with a red-tailed hawk). The call of "Dinner time!" has Milo following the trail back to a hole in the snow by his house; a cutaway view shows a second mouse waiting under the woodpile. As Milo lays his treasures--a feather, an acorn, a hemlock branch, and a fish skeleton--on the table, he declines his mother's offer of stories: He's got one to tell instead. Both have pale skin and straight, dark hair. Pair with some children's nature guidebooks to ignite imaginations. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-19-inch double-page spreads viewed at 30.1% of actual size.) Nature tells good stories if we only get outside and look around. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Milo's mother is too busy to read him a story, so the boy reluctantly heads out to play in the snow. Under the bird feeder near their house, he sees the footprints of a mouse and follows them. He stops at a winterberry, notices that its berries are all gone, and finds a single feather atop the shrub ("What had happened here?"). Following the footprints into the forest, he sees branches from a hemlock tree on the ground ("Why have they fallen like autumn leaves?"). By the time his mother calls him in for dinner, Milo has found loose clods of dirt (perhaps animals were digging for acorns), mysterious smooth runs in the snow leading down to a creek, a spot where the mouse's footprints were disturbed ("Had the bird calling in the distance swooped to the snow?"), and finally a small hole in the ground leading, he posits, to the mouse's home. Back in his own home, Milo's mother offers to read him some stories after dinner, but Milo refuses: "'This time,' he said, 'I have stories for you.'" Words and pictures work together to tell a taut and just-right-for-the-audience suspenseful tale. Mixed-media illustrations evoke the majesty of the wintry landscape but keep the focus on Milo's -- and the mouse's -- small journey. Young viewers will enjoy doing some noticing of their own: details such as a berry dropped by a cedar waxwing that the mouse brings back to its mate make the book even more satisfying. Endpapers label all the creatures featured -- and even there, viewers may have to look closely to find them all. Martha V. Parravano November/December 2020 p.90(c) Copyright 2020. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.