Molly, Olive, and Dexter Play Hide-and-Seek

by Catherine Rayner, Catherine Rayner (Illustrator)

Overview

Kate Greenaway Medal winner Catherine Rayner introduces readers to a trio of animal friends in a warmly humorous story offering reassurance that true friends don’t stray far.

Meet Molly the hare, Olive the owl, and Dexter the fox, three friends who live near the oak tree at the edge of the meadow. Hide-and-seek is Molly’s favorite game, but things aren’t going her way. For starters, Olive and Dexter don't seem to know the rules. And when Molly shows her friends how to play properly, they hide a little too well. Set in a delicately rendered pastoral world of soft color and shimmering line, here is a picture book that tackles outsize toddler emotions with sensitivity and whimsy. Make way for the singular Molly, Olive, and Dexter—ready or not, here they come!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536228410
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	07/04/2023
Series:	Molly, Olive, and Dexter
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.38(w) x 9.38(h) x 0.34(d)
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

Catherine Rayner is the author-illustrator of Harris Finds His Feet, winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal, My Pet Goldfish, and other acclaimed picture books. She exhibits her artwork in galleries all over the world and illustrates her own greeting card line. Catherine Rayner lives in England.

Editorial Reviews

Catherine Rayner uses delicate, expressive artwork to introduce 2- to 4-year-olds to new friends. . . Small but real joys and perplexities of toddlerhood play out in an affectionate setting in this first volume of a forthcoming picture-book series.
—The Wall Street Journal

A game leads to misunderstanding for a woodland trio. . . . The disagreements among friends are all gentle and easily sorted out. . . A lighthearted look at conflict resolution.
—Kirkus Reviews

Richly pigmented watercolor illustrations make this story of friendship seem plucked from a dream.
—Foreword

From the Publisher

2023-05-09
A game leads to misunderstanding for a woodland trio.

Molly the hare’s favorite game is hide-and-seek. She lives by an oak tree at the edge of a meadow with her friends Olive the owl and Dexter the fox. One day she initiates a game without first telling the others the rules, and mishaps ensue—first the pair “hide” by covering their eyes. After Molly clarifies that they need to conceal themselves from her, Olive and Dexter go to the other side of the tree. Molly finds them right away, and she complains that they need to do a better job hiding. Eventually, Olive and Dexter hide too well to be found. Distressed at the loss of her friends, Molly searches high and low to no avail, bemoaning her loneliness. When the pals are at last reunited, Olive and Dexter reassure Molly that they’ll never really leave her, and they all settle in for a nap. Rayner’s prose is illustrated with lightly abstracted mixed-media illustrations in a soft spring palette, and the animals are stylized but not anthropomorphized. The disagreements among friends are all gentle and easily sorted out, and this sleepily paced tale soon comes to a comforting close. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A lighthearted look at conflict resolution. (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews