Miss Brooks’ Story Nook (Where Tales Are Told and Ogres Are Welcome)

Bottner and Emberley shift focus from reading to storytelling in this wickedly funny companion to Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I Don’t). A power outage makes it too dark to read during Story Nook time, so Miss Brooks guides her students through the art of storytelling. Initially reluctant to invent a story, heroine Missy eventually unspools a tale about an ogre whose escaped snake makes quick work of Missy’s “exasperating” neighbor, Billy Toomey: “It wraps around him and squeezes so hard, his eyes pop out.” While introducing the ideas of plot, characters, problem-solving, and “satisfying endings,” these collaborators demonstrate in no uncertain terms just how much real-life power stories can have. Ages 5–9. (Aug.)