Cristina Plays

Differently scaled settings invite connective bedtime play in this frolicsome work from Chirif (A Sleepless Night) and Ortiz (The Love of the Moonlight). On the opening spread, a small white rabbit, Cristina, sits at a table upon which has been set a comparatively enormous tangerine. A page later, the bunny relaxes across a living room from a teapot whose size rivals that of the sofa—and two sugar cubes whose scale is suggested by two munching ants. In a tuck-in scene, the arrival of a pale-skinned, black-haired child glimpsed through the bedroom window reveals that Cristina resides in a dollhouse. But the bunny’s removal to a blanket fort on the child’s human-size bed offers further intrigue. Within the coverlet, the duo is rendered as about the same height, and they move together through a dreamlike series of evening scenes until a narrative shift, and a second tuck-in, suggests that the title’s Cristina might not be the rabbit, after all. Reportorial text and bright, layered digital patterns result in a smartly worked telling of epic proportions that puts child and stuffie on the same level. Ages 3–5. (Apr.)