Precious Little

Dizzyingly elaborate illustrations can overpower stories, but Hunt and Moss’s tale is every bit as rich as Chapman’s (Little Blue) byzantine fantasies. A blue-haired waif dressed in harlequin rags, Precious Little wants to dive and soar like the circus performers she serves. Her two allies, Tough Luck and Fat Chance, urge her to walk the tightrope across the top of the circus’s vast Lucky Dip. Instead, Precious Little tumbles into the hollow tower, but the voice of the Lucky Dip itself offers her a chance to change her fate (“Take the Hope or the Dream or the Song or the Dance,” it invites); her willingness to risk everything gives her the power to fly. Half a dozen spreads show Precious Little launched and soaring through vertiginous upside-down and sideways scenes: “She did a triple-twist star-bursting somersault, then she circled the earth with a whiz-around satellite spin.” Tough Luck and Fat Chance fear they’ve lost her forever (and readers may, too), but she returns triumphantly. It’s a provocative cross between Alice in Wonderland and Cirque du Soleil—hardcore whimsy, if such a thing is possible. Ages 3–5. (Nov.)