NIGHT SKY WHEEL RIDE

Poem and pictures unite in a delirious celebration of a first ride on a Ferris wheel.

Two children answer their own repeated chorus of “Are we big enough this year, Mama? / Are we brave enough, Brother? / Sister, are you ready to fly?” with a resounding “YES.” They race through fairgrounds to soar, “swiggle sway / creak squeak / rickety ratcheting / up! / up! / up!” Literally rolling across the pages, Fitch’s lines fizz with motion, emotion and metaphor. Yayo’s cotton-candy–colored pictures pick it all up with vigorously brushed fancies in which the children’s arms become wings or reach out to dandelion-fluff stars. The wheel itself undergoes a series of transformations from giant squealing pig to spinning clothes dryer to bars of music to rows of cocoons and exotic birds. Earthbound again, the excitement abates not a whit: “We are fizzy with the dizzy reeling / fuzzy with the Ferris wheel feeling // Now and forever a part of the sky.”

A giddy, intense, hugely fun ride that will propel listening audiences large or small into spinning tizzies of their own.