CREAK, THUMP, BONK!

Three children and a dog tiptoe around in the dark, crawling, bumping into one another, shining flashlights, and finding ways to be startled and scared. The collage illustrations—constructed of paper and fabric (specifically, cloth closely associated with the manufacture of pajamas)—convey a strong sense of undirected physical activity usually linked to wandering through the night. The one- and two-word lines of text per page are rhythmic if not outright rhyming. The story around which Roth (Buddha, 1994, etc.) has organized all this (the baby has escaped the crib and is tearing up the place) is hard to discern from the clutter surrounding it, but the clutter itself, with letters and figures leaping over the pages, is very atmospheric. (Picture book. 2-6)