RUNNERY GRANARY

A charming fantasy from the author of the Newbery Honorwinning novel, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (1995). Night after night, grain disappears from the granary owned by Mrs. Runnery. Suspecting weevils, she imports spiders to gobble up the pests. But in the morning, she finds the spiders spooked and hanging from the ceiling. She tries cats, but they too wind up clinging to the ceiling by their claws. Finally, Granny Runnery announces the solution from her rocking chair by the fireplace—a trap for gnomes! Smith, who must be making a specialty of fantastic creatures (he illustrated Nicholas Heller's Goblins in Green, 1995, etc.), has a field day with the pudgy, multicolored gnomes and brings warmth and dignity to the homier scenes. The ending may not be everyone's idea of a solution—the gnomes are sent downstream to become another family's problem—but readers can be certain that these appealing creatures will never come to harm. A lark. (Picture book. 5+)