Chester Raccoon and the Acorn Full of Memories - Audrey Penn

Illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson
Tanglewood Publishing, 2009
$16.95
32 pages
Endpapers: Purple

I picked this book up just to glance through it, to read it quickly, but with no intentions of blogging about it. However, I really enjoyed it. I liked the illustrations. I liked the story. I liked that it talked about making memories, but avoided spirituality. There's certainly a place for books like this.

When Chester Raccoon discovers that his friend Skiddil Squirrel has died, his mother helps him understand what that means, and helps him relieve memories of their time together, creating a happy spot in his mind about his friend. And when they travel to the place where Chester and Skiddil always played, they are accompanied by others who knew the squirrel. There's even a cool, happy ending that really cements the idea of memories and how important they are: Skiddil had collected a cache of acorns and buried them. However, when it came to finding them again, even with his friends helping, they could not be found. But Chester and his mom find a stand of new oak trees, and know this was the hiding place.

The illustrations cover the entire page, are very detailed and colorful and....happy.

Okay, I really like this book.