Angel: A Tale of Wonder

With a little encouragement from a special visitor, young Lara discovers that there is wonder to be found almost anywhere. While playing in the garden, Lara spies a white feather and scrap of golden cloth. Surely, the girl thinks, these lovely items must have belonged to an angel. But even more thrilling, Lara can hardly believe her eyes when an angel actually appears to her. "What do you know about wonder?" the heavenly creature challenges the child. And though Lara's parents and brother all have their own answers to the question when she poses it, Lara finally declares to her new friend, "You make the whole world wonderful. You are my angel, and you are the most wonderful of all." Eachus's (Daddy, Will You Miss Me? ) gentle picture book possesses a dreamlike quality but also encompasses a kid-friendly warmth and universal message. Her soft, colored-pencil illustrations appear to be bathed in a gauzy veil of sunlight befitting their subject. By book's end, younger, more literal-minded readers may well start checking all corners of the yard for their own winged wonder. Ages 3-up. (Nov.)