Subscriber Services |

Portfolio: Artwork blooms in book for youngsters

From the book jacket

Posted: September 29, 2012

Prolific children's author Jan Brett - more than 30 books so far - has another one out. It's called Mossy (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $17.99), and it's an unusual love story starring an eponymous turtle with a garden growing on her back.

Here's the plot: Mossy falls in love with a male turtle named Scoot, then is taken away from Lilypad Pond by Dr. Carolina, a biologist who makes Mossy the main attraction at her natural history museum.

It's all very exciting, until Dr. Carolina's niece Tory notices that Mossy, while enjoying the attention, is pining for Scoot. So a compromise unlike anything the current Congress will ever see takes shape: Artists Flora and Fauna keep Mossy's spirit alive at the museum with a portrait, while Mossy is taken back to Lilypad Pond to be reunited with Scoot.

Best thing about this book? Brett's illlustrations. The borders on every page are filled with delightfully drawn flowers, turtles, butterflies, and children.

She's been known to travel the world - Asia, Africa, the Americas, the Arctic - to do research on the animals and plants she's writing about. This time, the idea came from a simple experience: Brett and her husband, Joe, were dangling their feet in a lake when a turtle with vegetation on its shell swam to the surface.

This tale's a fantasy, but the idea of museumgoers - let alone the biologist who set up the blockbuster exhibit - being satisfied with a painting of the now-departed superstar sounds very far-fetched.

So does the idea that Dr. Carolina would happily ship Mossy off after she's put the museum on the map.

Maybe I'm just another clueless cynic. (And how about that $17.99 price tag?)

On the other hand, this wasn't written for me, and there are 38 million copies of Jan Brett books out there. That's a lot of happy kids.

Brett will be at the King of Prussia Wegmans on Oct. 7 from 5 to 7 p.m.

- Virginia A. Smith