The Things in the Air

PreS-Gr 3—Carefree smiles, sweet kisses, imaginative stories, flying riddles, and silly words. These are all the "things in the air," beloved by the elves who live in the Forest of Light. The witches hate these things—and the Sparkling Elves, who, in their eyes, do nothing more than waste time. In order to suck the joy out of the little creatures and make them work, the ugly hags devise a plan to capture all the things in the air. Their plan does not work, since everything refuses to be buried or hidden. The story seeks to celebrate the imagination of children and their lively spirits while chiding adults for their focus on work and accomplishment, but it isn't convincing, even though the language is quite nice ("a gust of wind made of hugs carrying the aromas of Spring; a handful of winks that sparkled like stars; a pile of words made out of sweets"). The illustrations fail to capture the beauty of the intangible things in life. Finally, the amount of text per page is overly long, slowing down the story's momentum and preventing the book from being a successful read aloud.—Sally James, South Hillsborough Elementary School, Hillsborough, CA