Walter Was Worried.

Walter Was Worried. Laura V. Seeger, New Milford, CT: Roaring Brook Press, 2005. Illus., hardcover, 40pp., $15.95.

The front cover confronts us with a simplified painted face with funny features. No words. The end pages display a red kite in a cloudy sky. The title page shows the kite in trouble followed by a repeat of the face on the cover, and opposite the image are a few words of text: "Walter was worried when ..." The "worried" is set in different colored and shaped letters which we note are used to create Walter's features: the "i" for a straight nose, the "d" for a sad mouth, etc. In a similar fashion, each double page presents a childlike picture of a face with features composed by letters of such words as "frightened," "upset," "shocked," etc. The pages between these portraits show you what is bothering them: heavy black clouds, lightning, rain, etc. But finally the sun comes out and "Elliot was ecstatic." There is considerable fun in watching the inventive letters composing faces and in responding emotionally to the weather's threats.