It's not every day that my two favorite things are combined so beautifully. When you're a fan of both horror films and picture books, you don't find very many satisfying crossovers. Lenny & Lucy, by the brilliant Erin and Philip Stead, is a stark and softly-suspenseful children's book about a child living in a new house in the woods. And these woods are as lovely, dark and deep as the best of them. To keep the shadows at bay, the child builds a guardian.
Moving to a new house beyond the dark unfriendly woods, Peter becomes homesick despite the companionship of his faithful dog and sews two giant stuffed pillow friends to stand as guardians against scary things. By the Caldecott Medal-winning creators of A Sick Day for Amos McGee.