Look Out, Look Out, It's Coming!

A boy is biking home one day when a furry blue creature, elephantine in size but puppylike in personality, swoops down from the sky and invades his life in bizarre ways. ``Look out, look out, it's coming,'' the refrain warns, as the intruder floods the bathroom, careens through the basement and makes a disastrous appearance at the school play. In an odd logistical point, only a handful of people seem to notice ``it.'' Truesdell's energetic illustrations imbue ``it'' with charm and vitality, but they occasionally seem out of sync, failing to reflect or clarify the text's descriptions. Geringer's verse, too, can be cryptic--``It'll ask a thousand questions. It'll try too hard to guess. It'll turn nine shades of purple if you don't say yes.'' Not only do the illustrations show the creature remaining blue, but the guessing and saying yes is never explained. Even the tension created by the titular refrain is undercut--the pictures repeatedly show that the visitor has already arrived, if not taken over. Perhaps most disappointing is the conclusion: a confusing, drawn-out game of hide-and-seek which is weakly resolved. Despite a promising premise and much surface attraction, this well-intentioned offering ultimately doesn't work. Ages 3-7. (Aug.)