Shawnee Bill's Enchanted Five-Ride Carousel

The author and illustrator who produced Santa Cows here create a nostalgic, nursery-room Eden of Ferris wheels and fireworks. Shawnee Bill, summertime's answer to Saint Nick, runs his celebrated ``carrousel'' sic at the North Valley Carnival every Fourth of July. At midnight, after the swing band, the sideshow and the rides have closed down, he heads out of the fairgrounds and magically frees his merry-go-round animals--the ``beautiful black swan,'' ``burly brown bear,'' ``glorious green tiger'' et al. ``You see, he has not forgotten the babes, too young to come to the carnival,'' the narrator cozily confides. The town's infants wake to ride the carousel creatures through idyllic fields of wildflowers for 10 textless pages. In Lane's colored pencil artwork, cool breezes whisper through purple thickets, and a grove of silver birch trees glints in the moonlight. Sweet as a taffy apple. Ages 3-6. (May)