Tales from Muggleswick Wood

Setting five verse stories in “the North-east of England,/ the great British outdoors,” debut author Cowie pens a collection of fanciful stories around a visiting grandmother who shares bedtime tales with each of her grandchildren. In the first, a child invites a gnome, a dragonfly, and other companions on a low-key walk to Muggleswick Wood. The other stories involve a boy finding a magic May bug that can grant wishes, a grouchy brownie ridding a stately home of a pompous new owner, an elderly major battling a busy garden mole, and a potentially fantastical ride to a ball. Throughout, ink and wash vignettes by Mackesy (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse) blend E.H. Shepard–style shapes with Quentin Blake–like energy. Broad humor (the mole-eradication scheme spatters the major’s house “with fish guts and poo”) alternates with idyllic rural beats (“A huge harvest moon/ sulked low in the sky,/ as the boys and girls fondly/ hugged Granny goodbye”) across these nostalgia-tinged bedtime treats, which take myriad beats from classic British children’s works. Characters are portrayed with pale skin. Ages up to 5. (Nov.)