THE MAGIC CORNFIELD

Willard (The Good-Night Blessing Book, 1996, etc.), in something of a creative risk, combines assemblages of US postage stamps with photographed tableaux of dolls, angels, and ""sculptures and other oddities"" (according to the copyright page) to illustrate this epistolary tale of a wildly errant traveler. When his car breaks down, Tottem Perhaps wanders into a trackless cornfield, precipitating a series of odd adventures and encounters--all of which he reports to his cousin Bottom on hand-written, appropriately stamped-and-canceled post cards. Eventually arrested in ""Hat Creek, CA"" for not wearing a hat, and jailed in ""Truth Or Consequences, NM,"" Tottem floats to ""Wise River, MT,"" then passes through other actual towns before finding the cornfield's edge at last near ""Happy, TX."" Sharp-eyed readers will chuckle over the Ethel Waters stamp among the Wise River note's waterfowl, Babe Ruth and a fishing fly called ""Lefty's Deceiver"" used to post the card from ""Left Hand, WV,"" and a squad of smiling faces from Happy. This witty travelogue makes a natural companion to Vera B. Williams's Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea (1988).