Freckled, red-haired Ivan, with his oversized head, tiny hands and feet, and blue sleepers, looks more like a floppy doll than a real little boy, and it's in the same spirit of cuddly make-believe that you'll have to take his friends Divan, an old sofa, and Zariman, a mouse who lives in Divan and chats with Ivan. But then Ivan's mother cleans out the attic and the divan is carted to the dump. Ivan follows on his tricycle, and has a brush with a booted, bizarre truck driver with ""a face like raw beefsteak"" before he finds Divan ""all smashed to pieces"" but carries Zariman home to share his room and remember happy times in the attic. Koci combines a coy naivete with a touch of the sinister in a typically European manner that appears less pristine over here--though this is cannier than many such imports.