The Voice in the Hollow
by Will Hillenbrand; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Holiday    40 pp.
10/23    9780823436811    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780823455072    $11.99

When a blizzard forces the branch library (appropriately operating out of a tree) to close early, a little story-loving mouse named Hubert opts to “take a shortcut home through the hollow…even though it was spooky.” The soft art uses line and color to convey mood and atmosphere. Hubert looks especially small and powerless, standing at the wooded entrance to the hollow as the storm blusters around him. The snowdrifts are deep, and the dark trees appear to have contorted faces. And then, a stranger—taller, sleeker, with a bushy tail peeking out of the bottom of her long pink coat—steps out from behind a tree and offers her hand to Hubert. Spare text tracks their progress through the hollow, while the illustrations tell a more dramatic story. Faces leer at them, Hubert nearly slips into a chasm, and the landscape itself begins to look like a family of giant, sleepy bears. A wordless double gatefold primarily in black and white provides scale and brings the bears, now wide awake, to life—and the biggest one looks irritated. Once Hubert and his protector reach safety, they part ways; but when the mouse looks back, he only sees one set of footprints. Like Hubert, readers can make the tale their own and decide what really happened on that strange and precarious trip. A map in the front of the book shows Hubert’s path, along with some fantastical details from this story (and perhaps others).

From the September/October 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.