MAN ON THE MOON (A Day in the Life of Bob)

Each day, a lanky bachelor named Bob leaves his red-brick townhouse and bicycles to a hilltop launch pad. He exchanges his tweedy threads for a form-fitting white jumpsuit with a crescent moon on the chest, then boards a squat rocket for the moon. Tripping lightly across the planet's golden surface, Bob vacuums space junk out of craters ("Quite often astronauts drop candy wrappers and cans") and enjoys a club sandwich with the Man on Mars and the Man on Saturn. He never notices the short green guys who watch from a distance, steal a cupcake from his picnic lunch and crowd into a wordless spread to mug for readers. When Bob addresses human tourists, who wear bubble-shaped glass helmets over their ordinary clothes, he denies that aliens exist; observant readers will suspect otherwise. Bartram (Pumpkin Moon), however, never resolves this joke. He pictures Bob returning to Earth amid a commuter crowd of people and green folk alike, which suggests (à la Men in Black) that antennaed creatures are a common sight, and muddles the punch line ("Bob would know if there were any [aliens]... wouldn't he?"). Bartram salutes William Joyce with his baroque images of a retro-futuristic everyday world and a smiley-face full moon, as well as his lucid palette of lawn green, clear blue and scarlet. The meticulous artwork plays off the deadpan text to buoy a familiar plot. Ages 4-8. (Aug.)