NIGHT STORY

A prototypical three-year-old here-and-now storyless evocation--the sort of thing the Kesslers have been doing successfully for years--miscast, here, as an easy reader. The one plus, and the only structuring element, is the fact that the father of the little boy tucked into bed at the beginning drives a truck at night; and so the description of ""night things"" and ""night sounds"" starts out, at least, as his narrative. And it does progress from ""Whoo, hoots the owl,"" to office cleaners and ambulance crews and other night people (including a mixed-sex pair of patrolling police officers). But none of it is above a preschool level, still, and that little boy--seen again in the morning, on his father's return--is very much a tot, complete to picture book and teddy bear.