Cricket Song

In a lullaby-like outing that celebrates interconnectedness, a boy slumbers at dusk, while the breeze “carries the song/ of crickets” into his bedroom. Outside his window, animals prepare for night in a hilly meadowland overlooking the bay. Hunter (Loon Baby) lyrically links each animal to another: “The fox sniffs for the/ scent of the rabbit,/ who hides in her hole in the field,/ listening to the hoo, hoo, hoo of a hunting owl/ carried on the ocean air.” Beneath the full-spread images, done in sweeping watercolor and textured with delicate ink lines, a thin border shows both the boy’s seaside home and a tropical fishing village, the softly luminescent landscapes separated by an ocean. As whales “rise up to breathe in/ air warmed by another land,” the village comes into full view, including another house overlooking tropical waters, where a girl sleeps “like you,/ to the song of crickets/ brought on the evening breeze.” A lovely, tranquil bedtime book that suggests the world need not seem so vast. Ages 4–7. [em]Agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown. (Mar.) [/em]