Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival

Kids who suspect that scary creatures lurk in the night will find kindred, er, spirits in the fidgety characters here. It's bedtime at Camp Badger, and Counselor Jim is encouraging six boys to get some shut-eye. But every time he turns off the lights, his charges protest that monsters are coming to get them. Indeed, a cutaway view of the boys' cabin reveals a toothy, tentacled beast concealed under the floor (``It comes awake in the dark''). The moon's reflection looks like ``an eyeball on the ceiling''; and bats are predictably mistaken for vampires. Himmelman's (Wanted: Perfect Parents) text and cartoony illustrations offer not so much a story as a series of imagined scenarios. Rather than presenting these situations as purely frightful, however, Himmelman demonstrates that some fear of the dark is normal-and can be kind of silly. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)