The following unabridged reviews are made available under license from their respective rights holders and publishers. Reviews may be used for educational purposes consistent with the fair use doctrine in your jurisdiction, and may not be reproduced or repurposed without permission from the rights holders.

Note: This section may include reviews for related titles (e.g., same author, series, or related edition).

From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

An original tale begins with a little girl named Annabelle finding a box of magic yarn that never runs out. She knits sweaters for everyone she knows, and then she knits “sweaters for things that didn’t even wear sweaters.” Soon everything in her once dismal town, from bare winter trees to houses and cars, wears a nubbly coat of color. Word spreads and it isn’t long before an archduke arrives, wanting to buy the box of yarn. Annabelle politely declines. So the archduke steals it. But when he gets back home and opens the box, it’s empty. “You will never be happy again!” he curses, thinking of Annabelle as he throws the box out his castle window. But it’s a magic box, and it knows exactly to whom it belongs. Mac Barnett’s whimsical, wonderfully paced story spins its own kind of magic, leaving plenty of room for children to decide on an explanation. Barnett’s folkloric outing is paired with masterfully understated illustrations by Jon Klassen—even the colors of the yarn are muted, although still a striking contrast to the shades of gray that defined Annabelle’s town before the box’s arrival. (Ages 4–8)

CCBC Choices 2013 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2013. Used with permission.

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from October 31, 2011
Understated illustrations and prose seamlessly construct an enchanting and mysterious tale about a girl named Annabelle, who lives in a world "where everywhere you looked was either the white of snow or the black of soot from chimneys." After Annabelle finds a box filled with yarn of every color, she immediately sets out to knit sweaters for everyone she knows. Barnett's (Mustache!) story is both fairy tale lean and slyly witty. No matter how many sweaters Annabelle knits, the box always has "extra yarn" for another project, until the entire town is covered with angled stitches in muted, variegated colorsâ€"people, animals, and buildings alike. (Fans of Klassen's I Want My Hat Back may suspect that a few of the animals from that story have wandered into this one.) A villainous archduke offers to buy the box, but Annabelle refuses. He steals it, but finds it contains no yarn at all, and with the help of just a bit more magic, it finds its way back to Annabelle. Barnett wisely leaves the box's magic a mystery, keeping the focus on Annabelle's creativity, generosity, and determination. Ages 4â€"8.