An unruffled protagonist with brown skin and dark braids evades the clutches of a witch, a ghost, and a troll: none of them are able to snatch her blue and white hanky, which she ends up gifting to a deserving mouse to keep its babies warm. Sweet, clever, colorful, and fun, in Donaldson's (The Gruffalo, etc.) familiar rhyming text. ( )

First sentence: There once lived a troll and a ghost and a witch. They were horrible baddies all three. They never said sorry or thank you or please, and their hearts were as hard as could be.

Premise/plot: Three villains or "baddies" scheme to steal a little girl's handkerchief. Will any of them succeed?

My thoughts: I did not care for this one. You might. I do think humor might be different in the US versus the UK. But I'm not sure that's the reason I didn't like it. I just didn't care about the story or the characters. The 'so what' was missing for me. ( )