Down on Casey's Farm

Casey has a farm in his backyard, and it fits in an old wooden drawer. Kids will want to watch as Casey pulls out his toy pigs, cows, horses and sheep--but they'll need to watch carefully. Jordan's hand-tinted photographs possess an heirloom stereoscopic quality that straddles the line between imagination and reality. Their three-dimensional tangibility gives toys a transfigurative power and real animals a surreal cast. Readers will appreciate Casey's tiny farm-in-a-box and delight in seeing animals up close and full-sized. Aiding the comprehension of youngest readers, the text carefully tracks the photographs and employs barnyard sounds that invite participation. Most gratifying is the imagination's escape through toy figures into a world of real animals, and then the satisfied return when the farm is packed back in the drawer. An inventive bedtime tale, this trip to the farm far surpasses ordinary moo-moo-here and cluck-cluck-there picture books. Ages 2-6. (Sept.)