Oh No!: 2a Naptime Adventure

A mother mouse leaves her two daughters with instructions to ``have fun and remember to nap at one o'clock'' in this uneven work by the author of Jenny's Journey. Flora and Dora don dress-up clothes and leave the house as the weather becomes threatening: ``OH, NO! The sky is turning gray! / There's no fun in a rainy day!'' Similarly pallid rhymed couplets accompany Samton's vivid paintings as the sisters sail on a bed through the flooded city, past other mice seeking refuge on rooftops. They encounter a dragon-like ``water beast,'' plunge down a waterfall and land on a rock, where they proclaim: ``OH, NO! The news is very bad! / If we don't nap, Mom will be mad!'' When they awake, it is sunny once again (``OH, NO! The clouds have blown away! / There's no fun in a sunny day!''), and the two mice run into their mother's waiting arms. By far the most engaging and creative feature of this fantasy is the art, full of confident strokes of color, daffy details (cats in prison stripes gesture atop the jailhouse roof, a set of building blocks spells out ``oh no'') and lots of motion. Ages 2-6. (May)