This is so adorable!! I squealed in delight when I saw it in the bookstore, hastily grabbed it on the shelf, and gleefully marveled at every hedgehog-filled page.

Hattie and Horace are the best of hedgehog friends, and do everything together, but they desperately wish to hug each other. Their poky quills make hugs troublesome and really just plain impossible. They try covering their quills with anything they find, from strawberries and snow*, to leaves and hollow logs, but darn it all, nothing works. One day, Horace finds a sock and wiggles into it. He looks about as silly and adorable as a hedgehog in a sock would

but Hattie doesn't mind. Hattie sees the potential. Hugging potential. (She also probably see the potential for becoming rich by selling socks to other hedgehogs to fulfill their hugging needs, but that's neither here nor there.) Hattie knows she's got to find herself a sock. And when she does, the most wonderful thing occurs; a thing that gives birth to fairies and makes old grumpy miser men smile in delight...a hedgehug.

This book also perfectly explains why socks are constantly missing their matching pair. The age-old mystery solved!

*Hedgehogs hate the cold and hibernate in the winter. They also pretty much lose the will to live in temperatures below 60F if they don't get to hibernate so...(yes, I realize I'm nitpicking a children's book with sentient hedgehogs besties, but I can't help it. )