School Library Journal Review

PreS‘Spowart's endearing mice celebrate Christmas indoors on the left pages and outdoors on the right. Each page contains a boxed illustration featuring lumpy little creatures with "inside" or "outside" printed underneath and a single verb that rhymes with the facing page's verb‘"Inside, munching" (on cookies) "Outside, crunching" (through crusty snow). The richly colored pastels are quite attractive, and the penultimate pages use "love" for both the inside and outside verbs. The final charming scene shows a mouse Santa and his reindeer soaring into the starlit sky and a text that wishes readers a Merry Christmas. Lack of a real story line limits this book's usefulness for group sharing. It will, however, be successful for one-on-one family reading.‘LF (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.