The Fountain

On a Tuesday morning, a yellow hat bobs to the surface of the town fountain. The next day, a yellow drum. Then a rocking horse, roller skates, cowboy boots, a garden gnome, things with moustaches. The whole town begins to gather, to gossip, to speculate. Experts arrive. The mayor installs a traffic light. Nobody ever figures out the fountain's secret — and then, one Tuesday, it vanishes as quietly as it arrived. Lisa Loffredo's debut picture book is a colorful, quirky fable, its pages packed with a cast of fantastical characters. If you look closely at the fountain's flower faces, you'll notice they change expression on every page — smiling, sticking out their tongue, closing their eyes in irritation. The mystery is never solved, but that's the point: the real gift, it turns out, wasn't the fountain itself but rather, what it left in its wake.