PreS-Gr 1-Nell and her dog, Rusty, love to dig in the springtime mud, but their friend Norman, dressed in a white shirt and bow tie, prefers to watch from a clean distance. Nell and Rusty tunnel, splash, and make dirt angels, and Norman is slowly drawn into their play. Soon he, too, is digging up treasures to add to their "dirt museum" and he doesn't even mind that his new shoes are all dirty. Best's lyrical text hums along ("In the spring when the trees unfreeze and the grass grows green and pansies say, 'Please plant me,'"), and Davenier's ink and pencil illustrations burst with color and movement, with Nell and Rusty always in motion, and Norman's static lines becoming more active as he becomes a muddy participant in the play.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The pleasures of getting down and dirty in the garden can be contagious. "Bye, bye, snow shovel," crows Nell, trotting out into the muddy yard with her eager dog, Rusty, and a wheelbarrow full of pansies. "Hello, trowel!" Neighbor Normanbow tie, white shirt, new shoes, fussily combed hairdeclines the offer of a trowel of his own, but he lingers to watch as Nell and Rusty enthusiastically make holes and hills and dirt angels. Once Nell discovers a worm, some lost toys and other earthy treasures, his resistance crumbles, and over the fence he comes to help in the joyful construction of a "dirt museum" from pansies, soil, rocks and found prizes. Davenier's splashy, transparent watercolors don't quite do justice to the muck's muckiness (or, sadly, the pansies, which, after posing in a bright row on the copyright page, for the most part just make a pale, indistinct blur in later illustrations) but capture the joy of getting back in (literal) touch with the planet. She also subtly leaves her figures' ages indeterminate, so that in different scenes, Nell could be seen as Norman's agemate, older or even an adult. An exuberant valentine to spring and to gardens in general. As Norman puts it: "Hooray for dirty digging!" (Picture book. 5-8)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Nell and her dog Rusty are elated to be digging in the springtime soil. Nell's fastidious neighbor, Norman, despises getting dirty, but he can't resist the allure of finding treasures and building a "dirt museum" and eventually joins in until he's as mud-covered as Nell. The simple story and wispy illustrations convey the easy joys of an imaginative day outdoors. (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.