MAGIC CARPET

When Elizabeth asks Aunt Agatha how her pretty carpet got to her from China, where it was made, it's the beginning of a game for the two of them, providing an imaginative answer in which tall tale is creatively blended with fact. Part of the pleasure here lies in the animating friendship between aunt and niece; part lies in the specifics the two concoct to lead each other on in their collaborative story: the truck that carries the carpet is not just a ``truck'' but ``an eighteen-wheel semi'' whose driver wears ``a jade ring on the pinky of his right hand.'' Once it's in the US, they decide that the truck stops only in places that begin with ``S''—an atlas helps here, but the dozens of other amusing details are all their own invention. Schwartz catches the ebullient flavor of this spirited exchange in art that is as fresh and lighthearted as the text. Good fun; good model for more freewheeling make-believe adventures. (Picture book. 4-8)