The Lying Carpet

Lucas's (Something to Do) first book for older readers, published in the U.K. in 2008, reveals that he's as remarkable a writer as he is an illustrator. The eponymous carpet lies in both senses of the word: he's a tiger skin who adorns the library of a stately home, and he weaves a series of ingenious untruths while speaking to a marble statue by the window. She's a representation of the virtue Faith, and she believes everything Carpet tells her. Since he claims one thing one day ("I have heard that, in fact, you were once, long, long ago, a perfectly ordinary little girl") and another the next ("I don't think you're really real at all"), Faith must decide for herself who she is and whether the carpet is telling the truth. Lucas's b&w illustrations, in which the static figures of Faith and Carpet frame images from Carpet's stories, have the wispy feel of dreams; by contrast, the carpet's talk is marvelously immediate and persuasive. Lucas's fusion of lighter-than-air fantasy and sharp philosophical inquiry draws on the charms of Nesbit and Juster, but his provocative irony is all his own. Ages 9%E2%80%9312. (June)