I wanted to read this because the ACPL (Allen County Public Library, in Fort Wayne, Indiana) named it as one of their Mock Newbery Honor Books (http://acplkids.blogspot.com/2010/12/...). I have to say though, while the illustrations are nice and the poetry is fine (I'm not a big poetry person and this didn't grab me at all - however I did like the poem about the Baby Porcupette), it doesn't seem like Newbery material to me. The illustrations create much of the charm of the book, and if this book is relying on the images so much, shouldn't it be a Caldecott contender instead? I dunno, I guess we'll see next week!