Red Knit Cap Girl to the Rescue    by Naoko Stoop Order:  USA  Can Little, Brown & Co., 2013 (2013) Hardcover     Reviewed by Bob Walch The creation of Japanese artist Naoko Stoop, this picture book was inspired by an article she saw about a polar bear stranded on a small piece of a breakaway iceberg. When the central character of this story, a small child wearing a large red hat and coat, discovers a little polar bear cub floating offshore, she rescues it. But then the problem becomes reuniting the cub with its mother. It will take all the ingenuity Red Knit Cap Girl and her animal friends can muster to figure out a way to get the polar bear cub back to the land of ice and snow. Of course, it will be a marvelous and exciting adventure which will end happily for everyone concerned. Using a delicate pallet of muted colors, Stoop's illustrations complement the Red Knit Cap Girl's red ensemble and make this a very pleasing story to enjoy with a young child. So many picture books nowadays use bright, fluorescent, almost garish color combinations that battle one another for the youngster's attention. Here everything works together in a very pleasing manner. The optimal word here is tasteful and this is a nice change of pace from what too often assails young readers today. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Kids books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews