Welcome to the Forest: The Harvest Party

K-Gr 4–Gentle monsters make new friends and celebrate the fall harvest in this cozy graphic novel early reader. Mossman, a boisterous Muppetlike forest creature, is preparing a harvest party for all his friends in the golden autumn-tinted forest. In three stories, he makes jack-o’-lanterns with his slightly anxious friend Wallace, attempts apple-picking to make cider, and serves as a thoughtful party host for his forest friends, including new pals Grumpkin and Shadow. Young readers will find this a breezy, playful read, free of any spooky surprises. Only a handful of pages include more than three panels, so the lush colors of the leaves and expressive faces of the monsters have plenty of room to shine. Risor’s forest is a tranquil and welcoming community, evoking a similar timelessness as Arnold Lobel’s “Frog and Toad” series. Like Lobel like those classic works, Risor’s interconnected tales eschew familiar plot structures to lead readers to unexpected directions that end on story beats free of didactic moralizing, instead inviting readers to articulate the unspoken universal truths depicted in the final panels. Three of the four main characters are identified as male.