Extra Yarn: A Caldecott Honor Award Winner

From bestselling and award-winning author Mac Barnett and illustrator Jon Klassen comes Extra Yarn, a Caldecott Honor Book, Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner, and a New York Times bestseller.
A young girl and her box of magical yarn transform a community in this stunning picture book. With spare, gently humorous illustrations and a palette that moves from black-and-white to a range of color, this modern fairy tale has the feel of a new classic.

Amazon Best Books of the Month for Kids, January 2012: A monochrome town gets a change of color and attitude with the help of a box of yarn and a girl named Annabelle. From the seemingly endless box of Extra Yarn Annabelle knits clothing for everyone around her, tempering the ill-tempered, and creating beautifully patterned warmth for people, animals, and objects, alike. When a greedy clothes-loving archduke tries to buy--then steal--the box for himself, he discovers that ill-gotten gains bear no fruit--or in this case, yarn. Mac Barnett’s elegant and clever story is complemented by Jon Klassen’s illustrations, and fans of I Want My Hat Back will enjoy the familiar faces that show up in this picture book about the magical properties of kindness and generosity.--Seira Wilson

*Starred Review* This understated picture book is certain to spark the imagination of every child who comes upon it, and what could be better than that? Annabelle lives in a black-and-white world, where everything is drab, drab, drab. So imagine her surprise when she finds a box filled with yarn of every color. Armed with the yarn and knitting needles, she makes herself a sweater, but after she finishes, she finds that she has extra yarn left over. After knitting a sweater for her dog, her classmates, and various (hilariously unsurprised) bunnies and bears, she still has extra yarn. So, Annabelle turns her attention to things that don’t usually wear wool cozies: houses and cars and mailboxes. Soon an evil archduke with a sinister mustache “who was very fond of clothes” hears about the magic box of never-ending yarn, and he wants it for his own. Reading like a droll fairy tale, this Barnett-Klassen collaboration is both seamless and magical. The spare, elegant text and art are also infused with plenty of deadpan humor. Klassen (I Want My Hat Back, 2011) uses ink, gouache, and digital illustration to fashion Annabelle’s world out of geometric shapes, set against dark, saturated pages, and against white as the town comes to colorful, stitched life. Quirky and wonderful, this story quietly celebrates a child’s ingenuity and her ability to change the world around her. Grades K-2. --Ann Kelley

“There’s nothing to say but―perfect.” — Lane Smith, New York Times bestselling author of It's a Book

“Understated illustrations and prose seamlessly construct an enchanting and mysterious tale.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Klassen’s deadpan, stylized illustrations impeccably complement Barnett’s quirky droll writing.” — School Library Journal (starred review)

“Klassen’s pacing, especially the mostly wordless sequence when the box floats back to Annabelle on a triangle of an iceberg, is impeccable. The final spread, all light and yarn-covered tree limbs, brings Barnett’s clever, quiet yarn full circle, to a little girl and a town, now colorful and happy.” — Horn Book (starred review)

“Reading like a droll fairy tale, this Barnett-Klassen collaboration is both seamless and magical. The spare, elegant text and art are also infused with plenty of deadpan humor. Quirky and wonderful, this story quietly celebrates a child’s ingenuity and her ability to change the world around her.” — Booklist (starred review)

Extra Yarn, winner of a Caldecott Honor and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, as well as a New York Times bestseller, is the story of how a young girl and her box of magical yarn transform a community.

This much-loved picture book is written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen, who also won the Caldecott Medal for This Is Not My Hat.

Mac Barnett is a New York Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into more than thirty languages. His picture books include two Caldecott Honor–winning collaborations with Jon Klassen: Sam & Dave Dig a Hole and Extra Yarn. Among his other popular books are I Love You Like a Pig, illustrated by Greg Pizzoli, and The Magic Word, illustrated by Elise Parsley. He lives in Oakland, California. You can visit him online at www.macbarnett.com.

Jon Klassen grew up in Niagara Falls, Canada, and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He is the New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of several books, including I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat, for which he won the Caldecott Medal. Two of his picture books have been named Caldecott Honor books: Sam and Dave Dig a Holeand Extra Yarn (winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award), both by Mac Barnett. You can visit him online at www.burstofbeaden.com.