"NOT IN THE HOUSE, NEWTON!"

Newton happens across a red, red crayon that fairly hums with magic. Everything he draws with the crayon becomes real, and each and every item, his mother reminds him, is forbidden in the house: a bouncing bali, a vrooming racecar, a fire truck with real sirens. At last he draws a big red airplane and takes wing--out of the house, away from all constraints. Gilliland (Rivers, 1993, etc.) celebrates the artistic impulse in a delightfully understated fashion, and Sayles's softened pastels create the right mood for the adventure: Suggesting a sense of otherworldiness, they portray Newton, whose happiness simply sparks off the page, as a boy who takes his artistic metier seriously. Not a new idea--look to Crockett Johnson's Harold and the Purple Crayon (1958) and Anthony Browne's The Little Bear Book (1989)--but here it's particularly joyful.