Monsters in the Fog
by Ali Bahrampour; illus. by the author
Primary    Abrams    32 pp.    g
6/22    978-1-4197-5245-2    $18.99
e-book ed.  978-1-64700-204-6    $15.54

“It’s hard to knit a sweater with your hooves.” The opening line of this animal fable sounds like a piece of gnomic wisdom, but in fact it simply refers to protagonist Hakim, a friendly-looking donkey who is knitting a sweater for his friend Daisy, who lives on the top of a mountain. “Hard” it may be, but obviously not impossible, because one page-turn later we see Hakim tucking the completed blue sweater into his colorful tapestry saddlebag before heading off to deliver his gift. The first character he meets on the narrow, foggy mountain path is a doom-predicting goat who warns against the mountain’s monsters. Hakim is unflappable when he sees monstrous silhouettes appearing in the mist and, sure enough, they all turn out to be benign, if odd. Every encounter is a witty and wacky visual joke. The creatures join Hakim on his journey and are present for the final big reveal, a surprise that turns the tale inside out and undercuts an overly neat moral. The pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations are dramatically composed, full of humor, and punctuated with mysterious glowing fog. A book that is perfect for storytime and, with its clean design and accessible text, also for new readers.

From the July/August 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.