NATHANIEL WILLY, SCARED SILLY

Nathaniel Willy is silly to be scared by a creaking door, but Gramma's sillier yet: each time she closes the door with a ``terrible squeak'' after kissing him good-night, he calls her back without saying why he's so frightened; and she tries to comfort him by bringing him yet another animal—cat, dog, pig, cow—until the bed breaks under the load. It takes the wise woman down the road to discover Nathaniel Willy's real fear (``...there's a ghost in the door!'') and oil the hinges. The pure silliness of this cumulative tale and its bouncing repetitions will enthrall preschoolers from the first squeak to Gramma's last kiss and the final, quiet closing of the door. Natchev, Bulgarian-born illustrator of Becky Ayres's Matreshka (1992), adds wonderfully to the humor with wide-eyed caricatures viewed from energetically skewed perspectives in a rustic old- world setting. A fine choice for a bedtime group. No source given. (Folklore/Picture book. 3-7)