Alden and Kato got the best book EVER for Christmas this year. The book is called “This Moose Belongs to Me” and is by Oliver Jeffers. Oliver Jeffers is an illustrator who has done just about everything – not just children’s books, but also advertisements, magazine articles, maps, wallpaper, cool shoes, rings, 4-D GLASSES!! Amazing!!! Someday, I want to be an illustrator JUST LIKE HIM.

Except I would shave off that silly mustache.

Back to the book. “This Moose Belongs to Me.”

First off, I’m the kind of person who judges a book by its cover. I know, I know, but as a sales clerk at a backwater Blockbuster once told me, “If you can’t pay for a good cover, the movie can’t be all that good.” Of course, he then recommended I rent Waterworld or Johnny Mnemonic because “they were awesome,” so maybe it’s about time I stop following his advice. Anyway, the cover of this book is fantastic, and gives a very clear sense of the goodness that’s inside. Jeffers does an amazing job combining these often grainy and poorly reproduced lush landscape paintings (apparently painted by Alexander Dzigurski, a Serbian artist who did most of his work in the 50s and 60s) with his painted characters. Though one would think that “grainy and poorly reproduced” would be a bad thing, he somehow really makes it work. My favorite spread in the book is one in which the hero, Wilfred, is “discussing plans for the coming year” in these beautiful collaged thought bubbles – full color against a black and white landscape. SO DELICIOUS!!

Some of the collaged images in the book are actually old etchings – simple, one color images that are made up of tightly controlled lines. You’d think this wouldn’t work well with lush, mushy paintings, but you are wrong! They look great! In fact, Alden’s favorite page is one which features an etching, because “it’s SOOOO beautiful!”

All this hyperbolic talk about the illustrations, and we haven’t even gotten to the story yet! The story is GREAT! Inventive! Unexpected! Funny! Charming! And did I mention the illustrations are to die for?!?!?!?!?!

Go out and buy this book NOW. You can buy it at your nearest independent book store, or, if you must (as I usually must) at your very own computer.

With all the fuss in the house over this book, even Iggy thought it might be worth a look.

And then she realized that books aren’t for eating.