DREAMCATCHER

With a willow twig and nettle-stalk twine, an Ojibway baby's sister weaves a weblike ``dreamcatcher'' to hang above the crib and sift out bad dreams. The baby sleeps and wakes and sleeps again, the family busy around it. Young's unfocused, impressionistic pastels capture the simplicity of the infant's changing moods with shifts of color and hazy but expressive faces. The authentically scary bad dreams—evil-eyed white owl Kokokoo and a ``raggedy man...his birchbark mask glowing like a ghost''—catch in the net until, ``struck by morning light,'' they die. Some of the text is white, legible on the darker backgrounds but less so on pale spreads like one showing the father in his canoe. A quiet glimpse of family affection and other universals within a particular traditional culture. (Picture book. 0-4)