A Mountain of Mittens

by Lynn Plourde, Mitch Vane (Illustrator)

Overview

Every morning, forgetful grade-schooler Molly's parents remind her to come home after school with her mittens, and every day, Molly forgets. Nothing works—not Velcro, not crochet chains, not even duct tape!

But Molly isn't alone. All the kids at school forget, and soon the mountain of mittens in the  lost-and-found has grown out of control. Can the kids and their teachers work together to retrieve their lost winter gear? Or will the mitten mountain take over the school?

WARNING: Lynn Plourde's story is so laugh-out-loud ludicrous that you might misplace your own mittens!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781570914669
Publisher:	Charlesbridge
Publication date:	07/01/2009
Edition description:	New
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 10.80(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	AD750L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Lynn Plourde is the author of several picture books, including TEACHER APPRECIATION DAY, SCHOOL PICTURE DAY, and SUMMER'S VACATION. Lynn lives in Winthrop, Maine.

Editorial Reviews

Plourde takes an ordinary winter event and makes an amusing story out of it. As the kids climb aboard the school bus, all the parents yell the same thing: "Don't forget your mittens at school." But, of course, the children do forget. The mittens wind up in a pile in the lost-and-found box, and in the following days, the adults try to find ways to keep the mittens tethered to their children, with yarn, velcro, and duct tape all playing roles. But nothing works, and the hill of mittens grows into a mountain. Pretty soon, kids are getting stuck in the pile—and the teachers who are trying to help them do, too. It's the parents to the rescue, and everyone manages to get home. But the mittens stay put, to the teachers' dismay. Although the ending is a bit flat, readers will chuckle as they recognize what a problem mateless mittens can become. Vane's watercolor-and-ink drawings have a jaunty air as they up the ante, showing wild ways to connect kid and glove and illustrating the prodigious size of the ever-growing heap. 

—Booklist

From the Publisher

Where do all those lost mittens go? Despite Mommy's warning not to leave her mittens at school, young Molly does, but for a good cause: She uses them to warm up a shivering turtle in her classroom's terrarium. Mr. Jolly, her teacher, rescues them and puts them on the lost-and-found pile, prompting the refrain, oft-repeated, "Mittens, mittens, my, oh, my, a mountain of mittens piled up high." In subsequent days, Mommy tries Velcro, crocheting, duct tape, etc., to keep Molly from losing her mittens. Apparently, it's a school-wide epidemic: When the principal Mrs. Folly announces that students will not be able to leave the school without mittens, she triggers a rush on the mitten pile, as well as a hilarious disaster. Vane's busy illustrations-in watercolor and dip-pen and India ink-are full of quirky additional jokes. A happy and sublimely silly tale-but why is a book about mittens publishing in the summer? (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews