Pepper & Me

Employing warm powers of observation and expressive mixed-media spreads in an elegant palette of fuchsia, olive, and chestnut brown, Alemagna (You Can’t Kill Snow White) chronicles the rich relationship that develops between a child and the scab that forms on their leg after a tumble on some cobblestones. The fall has already happened at story’s start (“It burned a lot, lot, lot!”), and though the child’s father says that the scab will be beautiful, instead, “it looked like a big hamburger.” The child’s mother says that the scab will go away in a few days, but it lingers. It’s the ugliest scab in the world, the child worries, much worse than those that other people have. The scab even gets a name (Pepper, after “the puppy I never managed to get”), and a spirited conversation ensues: “You couldn’t have called me Crystal or Jazzy? A super nice cute name?” Then, one morning, Pepper falls away, “tucked into the folds of my sheets.” It’s easy for readers to see their own concerns reflected in the narrator’s—and to breathe a sigh of relief when the ordeal is over—in this slice-of-life portrait of life’s small comings and goings. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)