JUST ANOTHER MORNING

Though he doesn’t retreat so far into the Id as Max in his wolf suit, here’s a lad who wakes surrounded by live zoo animals (plush, in the pictures), tiptoes past sleeping “giants” and rappels down a stepped “mountain” to get to the kitchen, confronts a voracious, sucking monster in the utility closet, then goes on to further adventures indoors and out before one of those “giants” snags him for a bath, a cuddle, and a nap. Muñoz dresses the shock-headed narrator in sagging PJs, and places him in recognizable surroundings, to which suggestive shadows or items have been added to evoke his inner exploits. Ashman captures the nonstop action in rollicking rhyme: “I cross a jungle, leap a lake, / wrestle with a spitting snake, / trek through desert, / crawl through caves, / sail a boat through tidal waves.” Even children well aware of the pleasures of Pretend will trail along admiringly in the wake of this very Young Indiana Jones. (Picture book. 5-7)