CARNIVAL

``Get ready to . . . Tie it, Fly it, Pop it, Top it, Toss and Roll it''—these rhymed imperatives and interjections associated with carnivals are printed in big letters above or below stylized pictures of kids with large, round faces enjoying a carnival from beginning to end: ``Hey . . . want to do it again?'' They eat candy, go on rides, and play with animals. The flat, clean pictures are full of large monochromatic expanses in slightly altered primary and secondary colors. The people and objects in them are stretched out in different directions, an effect that is occasionally confusing, like the view in a funhouse mirror. The text falters in a pile-up of unrhymed exclamations at the end of a roller-coaster ride—``Whoosh! Bump! Tummy-oh!''—but the book works on the whole, and its distinctly retro appearance puts an edge on this vicarious outing from the author of Gather Up, Gather In (1994). (Picture book. 2-7)