THING-THING

Staying on the sixth floor of the Excelsior Hotel, Archibald Crump is unhappy with all the hundreds of presents he’s gotten for his birthday. His father runs down to the toy store to find something his spoiled son doesn’t have already, settling on the toy labeled “Thing-Thing,” which is not quite any specific animal. But awful Archibald is so dissatisfied that he throws the creature out the window. Thing-Thing isn’t distressed by the rejection—it wanted to find a loving child—but the fall is a bit worrying. As it descends floor by floor, Thing-Thing glimpses and is glimpsed by a person within, each with their own story, and works a sweetly transformative magic on those inside the hotel…until it lands with a thump in the carriage of a fussy infant, who then stops crying. Fagan’s story, and its serendipitous end, will please those on laps or large groups; Debon’s vertiginous cityscapes, with wildly varying perspectives and orientations supported by a leaping, swirling typeface, are just as good a match to the text as Thing-Thing and its new owner. (Picture book. 4-7)