THE DOOR IN THE TREE

Drawn in yellow and white with buoyant, childlike, but slightly skewed simplicity (and just a lighthearted jot of cubism), the matter-of-fact log of a little girl's journey begins a bit like Alice's when ""I . . . met a rabbit who showed me a hidden staircase in a tree."" But unlike Alice's adventure the rest is all a plotless sightseeing tour, with a birthday party for ducks, people who dance on rooftops, and other ""tiny, tiny"" ones who live underground. Cool and impassive, the little girl collects stars from the sky, skates around the world, and returns home through the door in the tree with the help of a magic wand donated by a tiny witch. Separately, the heroine's encounters are fairly commonplace as fantasy elements, but Bram's telling--and picturing--is on a young dreamer's wave length.