Moose is the only animal not busily preparing for winter as this story opens. But Moose is busy in ways he doesn’t realize. When a flock of birds flying south lands on his antlers, he’s busy being a tree. In winter, when he carries the other animals across the river to visit Beaver before the water freezes, he’s busy being a ferryboat. In spring, Moose becomes a nesting spot for a bird. Only when summer comes does Moose have an actual plan to occupy his time, although it doesn’t turn out quite as he thought it would in Nancy Van Laan’s tender, sweetly funny advanced beginning reader about a lumbering creature with a gentle heart. Moose and his animal friends are illustrated by Amy Rusch in ink and colored pencil. They made their debut in Moose Tales (Houghton Mifflin, 1999). (Ages 4–6)

It is fall, and Beaver must make his winter house. Squirrel must hide acorns. Rabbit must gather bark and twigs. But Moose has nothing busy to do. How can Moose feel useful and important too? Set in the secure world of the woods, these gentle stories for beginning readers reveal the promise of enterprise in us all, as the winsome Moose sets out to find just what a Moose is good at doing.