Yiayia has knitted a red sweater for Ari the pug, and Ari wants nothing to do with it. Her grandson Theo, who does not want his grandmother's feelings hurt on Christmas morning, buckles on his new snowshoes and takes the dog out to Echo Lake to show the gift off properly. Snow keeps falling while they walk. By the time they reach the lake, the sweater is gone, and so are their own tracks and every landmark that told them which way home was.

What saves them is the reason the sweater is red. Jan Brett lets you see the answer before Theo does, because she draws it into the borders while the story is still busy in the middle of the page, and children spot it and shout. That is the pleasure of a Brett book and this one is built entirely around it.

The interior artwork shown here is the publisher's own for this printing. A lit stone fireplace and a tree loaded with hand painted ornaments open the book, with Ari standing on the hearth rug and her china bowl, lettered ARIADNE, under the branches. Theo kneels in a cream fisherman sweater holding a snowshoe almost as tall as he is. Later the pair cross a yard under snow laden branches, and a lane fills with neighbors and their dogs, every animal drawn as a portrait rather than a shape. Each panel is edged in a coil of red knitting wool and flanked by oval side scenes that carry a second story in the margins.

Hardcover, 32 pages, 10 1/4 by 8 3/8 in. G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 25 November 2025. ISBN-13 9780593533918. The publisher grades it for ages 4 to 8, preschool through grade 3, Lexile 770L and Fountas and Pinnell level M. It was a number one national bestseller.

See Jan Brett’s Goldilocks Read The Snowy Nap Get the Jan Brett board book set