In this original take on the back-to-school tale, Lori Nichols (Maple; Maple and Willow Together) steps into the shoes of the younger sibling left behind when her older sister begins kindergarten.
The author-artist depicts sisters Maple and Willow as inseparable all summer long: jumping rope, playing leap frog and mimicking squirrels. When Maple leaves for "big-girl school," Willow must figure out how to fill her day: "Home wasn't the same without Maple." Nichols gets Maple's voice pitch-perfect as she reports nonstop on her teacher the moment she gets home. "I had fun, too," Willow says, "I played with Pip." The author-artist tucks into the pictures clues to Pip's identity, and readers will figure out before Maple does the identity of this mysterious new friend who seems to be taking the older sibling's place in Willow's world ("He has a bumpy head and he is afraid of squirrels"). Nichols embellishes Willow's adventures with full-spread images framed by gorgeous autumn-tinted maple leaves. The ghosted typeface of the older sister's after-school reports indicate how detached Willow feels from them, and when Willow tells a bike-riding Maple that Pip "taught me how to ride," Maple conveys how hurt she feels, "But I wanted to teach you how to ride." Willow responds, "I know, but you're gone a lot." The girls' honesty results in a breakthrough: they can be apart during the day and still have fun together at home.
Once again, Nichols depicts the riches of the imagination as well as how capable children are of working out challenges for themselves. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness