Who's There?

After what has clearly been a long and glorious day of meadow hopping, the small bunny narrator of Schaefer and Morgan's latest collaboration (Kids Like Us; Dragon Dancing) literally leaps into his cozy, green bed without a fuss. And that's when an eerie, straight-out-of-a-ghost-story noise ("creak, creak, crinch") invades his dark bedroom and eventually morphs into the even more gothic "creak, creak, crinch, crinch, crinch, thwack-a-wack!" No matter how much the wide-eyed rabbit tries to convince himself and his lovey, Boo, that the noise is innocuous, he can't shake the idea that it could be a harbinger of any number of menaces, including a "Grimy Gooey Ghoulie with a snuffly droozly nose" (imagined as a bulldog with severe nasal drip and a tissue box strapped to its back). We've all been there%E2%80%94both in childhood beds and in countless other books. But the combination of Morgan's vibrant, mock horrific evocation of the nighttime heebie-jeebies and Schaefer's read-aloud-savvy text (packed with repetition, rhetorical questions, and onomatopoeia) makes a return visit worthwhile. Ages 2%E2%80%935. (June)