Fairy Walk

Streamlining the goings-on with simple dialogue and action words, Cornwall (The Best Bed for Me) follows three children searching for fairies in the woods. “Let’s go, let’s go!/ Skip,/ skip,/ skip,/ trip!” they say while waving goodbye to two adults and venturing through a gate. It’s a rainy, misty day, and opaque pastel, watercolor, and collage spreads depict a brown-skinned child in a pink rain poncho opening their arms wide: “Where are you, fairies?” A smaller, light-brown-skinned child in a floofy skirt gestures at a rock. After the trio tips it over, readers see an outstretched hand holding not the sought-after quarry but a small orange newt: “A dragon!” And though the tallest, a pale-skinned child in a yellow rain slicker, gestures for quiet, they find “no fairies at all!” The search does, however, turn up mushrooms, insects, and underground life (“Feel the ground! It hums. It thrums”). While the children never see them, readers are likely to spot small, blue, winged beings across the pages of this freewheeling group outing of a work about careful noticing. Ages 3–7. Agent: Emily van Beek, Folio Jr./Folio Literary. (Apr.)