Lightning Bug Thunder

Faltering rhythm and a strained rhyme scheme trip up Burke's debut book, set in a timeless, western town in the midst of a summer drought. ""It hadn't been raining for one hundred days,/ People were sweltering in the sun's rays./ The trees looked so tired; the flowers seemed sad,/ They all needed water, and needed it bad."" Two friends meet up with Kathryn Claire, who shows the girls her lightning bug in a jar. When her ""pet"" lights up after sunset, the girls decide that something is missing: ""I think we can teach him so he'll understand/ That thunder and lightning should go hand-in-hand.' "" The trio begins to jump, whoop and holler; they seem more concerned with creating thunder for the bug's benefit than with attracting rain for the town, yet the much-needed rain arrives. Adding substance to the slight verse, McGraw's (Love You Forever) full-spread paintings move from the realistic to the surrealistic, as the bug's light gives these sleepy, eerily deserted sidewalks--and the girls' faces--a luminous, golden glow and oversized raindrops fall from the sky. Her pictures of a town to rival Pleasantville begin with an aerial view, then plunge readers into the heat with a Hopper-esque view of a man hanging out of a corner hotel window to catch even a hint of a breeze. Unfortunately, McGraw's evocative images can't make up for a text with little spark. Ages 4-7. (Dec.)