ED EMBERLEY'S CRAZY MIXED-UP FACE GAME

You've probably seen those split-page picture books that invite kids to line up unmatching tops and bottoms to create unheard-of creatures, faces, landscapes, or whatever. Emberley makes a more complicated game of this pastime by asking groups of "players" to fold a paper in four, then take turns drawing the first, second, third, or fourth quarter of a face. What each player draws is determined not by his or her own whim but by the number he or she draws: thus the first player might draw number seven, turn to the "first player's pages" in the book, copy the designated seventh pate from a total of twelve step-by-step drawings of head tops (rabbit ears, a Viking hat, etc.), then pass the paper on to player number two. Of course kids can and have played similar games without such lockstep instructions; and though some of Emberley's step-by-step drawing books have worked like sparks, this one will only stifle whatever spontaneous hilarity the pastime might ordinarily allow.