Plourde takes an ordinary winter event and makes an amusing story out of it. As the kids climb aboard the school bus, all the parents yell the same thing: “Don’t forget your mittens at school.” But, of course, the children do forget. The mittens wind up in a pile in the lost-and-found box, and in the following days, the adults try to find ways to keep the mittens tethered to their children, with yarn, velcro, and duct tape all playing roles. But nothing works, and the hill of mittens grows into a mountain. Pretty soon, kids are getting stuck in the pile—and the teachers who are trying to help them do, too. It’s the parents to the rescue, and everyone manages to get home. But the mittens stay put, to the teachers’ dismay. Although the ending is a bit flat, readers will chuckle as they recognize what a problem mateless mittens can become. Vane’s watercolor-and-ink drawings have a jaunty air as they up the ante, showing wild ways to connect kid and glove and illustrating the prodigious size of the ever-growing heap.
—Booklist
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