Back when I was a freshman at BYU, two of the most delightful people I met in my honors freshman colloquium class were Ralph Nielsen and Laura Farnsworth. Both were bright, witty, and kind to my fairly obnoxious 16-year-old self (redundancy alert). Later, they went on to marry each other, so that Laura Farnsworth became Laura Nielsen. And later still, a mutual friend gave our family this delightful young children's book by Laura (who, as a humanities major, used to give one of two answers when asked the inevitable question of what she would do with her degree after graduation: "Starve in a garrett" or "Be human").

I recount this history in part to admit my own reviewer's bias, which is favorable, and in part to point out the "Mormon connection" for this book, which lies very simply in the fact that the author is LDS and not in any particularly "Mormon" themes or cultural artifacts. (I don't know anything about the illustrator's background, so can't speak to that.) But LDS or not, this is a book both young children and their parents are likely to enjoy.

The story goes like this: Jeremy's Aunt Alice always sends birthday presents that are well-meant, but somehow a little "off." One year she sends a muffler that is far too long. Jeremy, who seems to be about in 4th grade, endures teasing and encounters serious logistical problems with the muffler, which he tries to lose but which is always recognized and returned to him. One day, however, Elsie Jones, who is skating on the river, falls through the ice. Jeremy is able to use his muffler to pull her out and keep her warm until the rescue workers arrive. He is written up as a local hero, and his muffler winds up in the local museum.

It's hard to identify precisely the book's target audience. Size and amount of text leads me to think of this as perhaps an advanced first grade or a second grade book. At the same time, the vocabulary is not always kept to a second grade reading level: on the first page, we encounter both "forgetful" and "unfortunately." Personally, I rather like this (I think it's good to stretch children's vocabularies a little), but it may make this more suitable as a story to be read to children than as a story for them to read to themselves.

As a read-to story, the book works very well for a younger audience. Every page includes clear and memorable illustrations that work very well with the text, helping the reader to see both the action and the emotions of the characters. Even my two-year-old was able to understand and say "Oh, no!" in sympathetic distress on the page where Elsie Jones is shown falling through the ice.

The book's style is delightful. Here's an excerpt (stretching over three pages):

     A local sculptor made a statue of Jeremy, which he entitled Muffler and Boy.
     The lady next door painted a picture called Still Life with Muffler and won a prize for it.
     A fancy department store downtown started selling mufflers like Jeremy's, and then all of the other stores started selling cheap imitations. Jeremy was afraid it would never end, and he would be stuck wearing Aunt Alice's muffler for the rest of his life.

The illustrations to go with these pages are equally wonderful. The illustration for the last paragraph, for example, shows people walking down the street, all wrapped in huge brightly covered mufflers, including a lady in the foreground who is holding a stylish shopping bag and wearing makeup and earrings.

Overall, a fun book -- which, while not a weighty exposition of LDS themes and doctrines, goes along well with a Mormon sense of family and of the minor hardships, as well as the joys, that come with far-flung and caring relatives.

Jonathan Langford
jlangfor@pressenter.com