THE DOOR IN THE WALL

A child finds a door leading to the land of dreams in Elliott’s picture book.

What is behind the door in the wall? It’s MollyMalloop, who might be a dragon and could be a bird. She sits waiting for a dreaming child to come through a mysterious snake-handled door. The brunette, pigtailed, light brown–skinned narrator journeys through that door into a candy-colored fantasy world packed with harmless fantasy creatures, including the small blueberry-shaped Blujovis and a bespectacled orange thing with no name. In a completely distinct second episode, the narrator crosses through the door again and rides in a log boat with a frog in a top hat. After a sedate, colorful adventure in the jungle, thunder wakes the narrator and ends her dream. Costello's silly watercolor illustrations animate lively, long-armed, and snub-nosed creatures in the fantastic dreamland and provide visual interest, though the balance of the pages is tilted heavily in favor of the long blocks of verse. Though narrative interest is minimal, the satisfying rhyming couplets (“On top of her hat was a red bean bag chair / held snuggly by horns that Snake said would be there. / A blue bean bag chair was strapped tight on her back / where I could stretch out to eat snacks from my pack”) and entertaining images make this good bedtime fare for young children.

A dense rhyming journey through a fantastical world with no big scares or surprises.