The Salamandar Room

Brian finds a salamander in the woods and wants to keep him. Where will he sleep? his mother asks. I'll bring in some leaves, Brian says. But where will he find his friends? More salamanders, Brian says. But where will they find their bugs? And so it goes — each of his mother's gentle questions answered with such calm logic that by the final page, Brian's room has become the forest itself: mossy and moonlit, alive with crickets and fireflies and the soft breathing of a boy and his salamander asleep together. One of The Atlantic's 65 Essential Children's Books, and one of those rare picture books that captures the boundless nature of a child's imagination.