The Basement Stairs: A Spooky Pop-Up Book

Not even the perpetually smiling characters of Lambert's boldly painted artwork can raise these dull Spooky Pop-Ups from the dead, nor are the trite, forced rhyming verse and the uninspired-though laudably sturdy-paper engineering much of a treat. Sample: ``Skeletons in your closet, they won't let you sleep./ Cause when you close your eyes,/ they creep, creep, creep.'' Youngest readers might be tickled by the mini-book format, but older children will do better to seek their chills elsewhere. Ages 3-7. (Sept.)