Rain, Rain, Everywhere

From School Library Journal PreSchool-K-On a spring day, Mouse Molly and her siblings go outside to play and are caught in a storm. They turn down offers of refuge from a squirrel, a harvest mouse, and a group of rabbits, before Mother finds them and leads them to shelter in a hollow tree. When they are safe and dry, Molly worries about her new meadow friends. She ventures out into the storm, finds the animals displaced (there is no explanation of what happened to their homes), and offers them refuge in the tree. In the morning, they awake to find a rainbow, which Harvest Mouse tells Molly is "a special present for saving us." Hansen's beautiful watercolor illustrations are visions of spring, done on a perfect mix of single pages and spreads, and her cartoon animals are large and expressive. Unfortunately, the plot is implausible and didactic, and the story presents a sugarcoated message about taking care of friends. Realistic tales about animal homes in nature that are more informative and comforting include Jim Arnosky's Rabbits and Raindrops (Putnam, 1997), Nancy Tafuri's I Love You, Little One (Scholastic, 1997), and Lydia Dabcovich's Sleepy Bear