DiCamillo, Kate. Orris and Timble: Lost and Found. Illustrated by Carmen Mok. Candlewick Press, 2025.

In my review of the first book in this early reader chapter book series, Orris and Timble: The Beginning, I said that the illustrations by Carmen Mok were adequate, but nothing special. Either the illustrations have improved in this second book, or I have grown in my appreciation. Whatever it is, there were several pictures in this book, which continues the saga of the friendship between the snowy white owl Timble and the curmudgeonly rat Orris, that I wanted to frame and enjoy at my leisure. Timble the Owl grows up in this book, and his world gets bigger. But he eventually returns to his home in the barn and to the comfort of his friendship with Orris the Rat.

If that first book was “about friendship and adventure and choices and risk taking”, this second book is a twist on the story of the Prodigal Son from the Bible. Timble is lost, but eventually found. And the central ideas that I took from the book are two: Stories tie us together. And we can always find our way home if we look hard enough.

Maybe these books are too meditative and philosophical for some children, and even some adults, but I think others will appreciate them deeply. The vocabulary is somewhat challenging, but the sentences are simple, with only a few sentences on each page, along with those now lovely pictures. And the plot line is easy to follow, even though the ideas contained in these “easy” stories are beautiful and profound.

This book and the one that precedes it, Orris and TImble: The Beginning, are both available for check out from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.