The Magic Ball of Wool by Susanna Isern illustrated by Nora Hilb translated by Jon Brokenbrow

One night a ball of wool lands on a sleeping hedgehog. In the morning a spider sees the wool and suggests the hedgehog might like to use it for knitting.  In the following scenes (as you may have seen in the wonderful book Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett) the hedgehog makes special and kind garments for his forest friends. 

He makes a sweater for a small mouse; fancy mittens for the frog; a big balaclava for his friend the bear and one hundred socks for the centipede. But as each gift is given something magic happens. The wool is able to grant wishes and so the sweater turns into delicious cheese; the mittens become a mirror; the balaclava is now a huge sea shell and those hundred socks turn into castanets!

All of this is great fun but now comes the twist. A crab arrives. He needs a strong rope because a huge blue whale is stranded on the beach. What can hedgehog do? There is only one tiny piece of wool left. Luckily the forest animals are compassionate. They arrive at hedgehogs door and return their magic gifts. Now all that hedgehog has to do is pull the thread from each gift and he will have the whole ball of wool again. Now you have probably guessed that the whale is indeed rescued and hedgehog is able to knit the strong rope but you will gasp when you see the rope is transformed into something completely unexpected - a butterfly.

Here are some activities to use with The Magic Ball of wool. 

The Magic Ball of Wool was originally published in Spanish with the title El ovillo mágico in 2013. I did find a paperback edition of the English translation published in 2019 and this may be available.

The Magic Ball of wool won a Silver Medal in 2013 in the Moonbeam awards.

The Moonbeam contest began in 2006 as a way to open up awards in children’s publishing to all types of publishers and genres. By developing a contest that would recognise winners in each of the nuanced categories of children’s publishing, it was hoped to bring attention to the under-sung children’s books and their creators who fell between the cracks in larger, more general contests.

I talked about Susanna Isern in a previous post where I explored her book A Mystery in the Forest.

Here is a collection of books which feature knitting called Yarn Yarns from my friend at Kinderbookswitheverything. Knitting is a fun mini theme to use with classes in Kindergarten up to Year 2 especially if you can take along a little knitting, wool and knitting needles to show the children how knitting works. Take a look at some other books by Argentinian illustrator Nora Hilb.