Why We Love... The Mitten

In this series, Tickety Books editor Roman Milisic unpacks the secrets of great children's books.

SMITTEN

I didn't grow up with Jan Brett's The Mitten (Putnam, 1989), but I hear it noted so often as a childhood favorite. What's its secret?

The Mitten is based on a Ukrainian folktale. Little Nicki asks his Baba to knit him white mittens. She warns: if you lose them in the snow, they'll be impossible to find. Of course, he loses one. Woodland animals discover it and, one by one, climb inside for warmth—each bigger than the last. Somehow there’s always room for one more, even when a bear squeezes in. 

The plot is just silly enough to delight. And of course every child has lost a mitten. But it's Brett's enchanting illustration that hits the deeper note. Why?

NATURALISM AND FOLKLORE

First, Jan Brett's style aligns with her story. Naturalistic illustration-- realistic animals, believable gestures, watercolor precision, a la Beatrix Potter, Garth Williams, Susan Jeffers-- goes perfectly with folklore.

Folklore needs realism as an anchor for the supernatural, for the magic and the danger to stick. A child alone in a realistic environment is vulnerable. A child alone in a generic "storybook space" is nothing. Naturalistic style honors that: The cold is cold. The forest is dark and dangerous. And fairy tales brim with such threats.

Fairy tales are folk realism with a supernatural element. The more real the world looks, the more powerful the strange magic becomes. The idea of folklore is: "This happened. Maybe not exactly--but it could have." That's what makes The Mitten so powerful to a child: it's almost plausible.

BRETT'S WINTER WONDERS

Brett was also smart with her snowy subject matter. Even her promo shots lean in (see above). She drew heavily from Baltic folklore, and whether she chose these stories to draw snow or drew snow because that's where the stories led her, it worked beautifully. She's masterful with winter textures: knitted wool, birch bark, fur and embroidery. And all that snow is essentially white space that lets her painstaking details breathe instead of overwhelming.

YOU SEE WHAT'S COMING

Perhaps the real secret is the triptych layout--a Brett hallmark. Each double-page spread has a central image with heavily decorated borders and two supporting scenes on either side. It's complex, busy, endlessly re-readable. You discover something new each time.

What I love about them most, is those side panels show what's happening simultaneously elsewhere, and what's about to happen. Your child sees the fox approaching in the border before rabbit does.

There is ancient power in a triptych: rhythm, transformation, the magic of threes. Read left to right, The Mitten’s triptych shows Past, Present and Future. A child doesn't need to intellectually understand the concept of time to feel the arc: the spread lets them view all states at once, spotting differences, noting cause. For a small child, this narrative superpower can be huge.

LITTLE MINDS

The nostalgia surely comes from that combination of illustrative richness, and portal to the future --the opportunity to decode and predict. Parents focused on reading the words might miss those details, but little eyes and little minds don't. Brett understood that and made a classic. 

Stick with the series to learn what separates forgettable books from the ones your kids will remember for life. Tiktok @ticketybooks and IG @tickety.books