MADISON FINDS A LINE

Madison, with a button nose and black curls, finds a line upon the ground. She decides to follow it and invites her cat, Caspar, along; they discover a jitterbug band of insect jazz players. Madison steps in with some fine footwork until the bugs break for lunch. A storm nearly drowns Madison and the cat, but they clamor into an upended umbrella, save the bug band as well, and reach dry land and the line again. They track it past a salsa land and up alpine steps—Madison’s clothes change miraculously for each tableau—across a great divide, then a long slide home. Given the imaginative possibilities of following a line, the choices here seem arbitrary, with echoes of other books; still, Warner (The Magic Sewing Machine, 1997) takes her fancies out for a little stretch in verses that have more lilt than clank, and in vivid illustrations that are full of energy. (Picture book. 4-8)