Little Elliot, a very small, polka-dotted elephant from 1940s Manhattan, met his best friend in Mike Curato's Little Elliot, Big City. But now, in Little Elliot, Big Family, he feels quite lonely when that best friend, Mouse, scurries off to a family reunion without him.
Elliot decides to leave his quiet brownstone to take a walk through the city streets. Nostalgic, Edward Hopper-esque scenes (in "pencil with digital color," says Curato) capture the essence of New York City in the winter: a ride on the subway with bundled-up people, Central Park's leafless trees, children skating at Rockefeller Center. No one notices the small elephant, but he sees fathers and daughters, sisters sharing secrets, grandmothers singing to babies... and it makes him feel even more alone. Then Elliot hears his name in the night. "Was it the wind? No, it was Mouse. 'I missed you!' said Mouse. 'I missed you too,' said Elliot." Without further ado, Mouse and Elliot traipse off to the family reunion--a lavish candlelit feast in a human's attic, dotted with dozens of white mice dancing, eating and making merry amid golf clubs and steamer trunks. (A sneak preview of the party in the opening pages shows the mice using bottle caps for plates and alphabet blocks and spools of thread for seats, Borrowers-style.) And, "At the end of the day, Mouse counted the whole family again... and added one more."
Elliot's warm welcome into the mouse family is a happy ending to this aching story of longing to belong. --Karin Snelson, children's editor, Shelf Awareness