THAT'S HOW IT IS WHEN WE DRAW

A young artist experiences different moods as she draws monsters, people, flowers, and forest creatures. On the opening page, our young illustrator is talking on the phone, apparently to a friend who wants to join her in a day of drawing, so they can be ``alone together.'' Children may be confused, looking for this friend in human form, for it turns out to be the muse-like mouse character with wings that impishly cavorts across the pages. Two rambling poems—or one long poem with two headlines, ``WITH JUST ONE PENCIL'' and ``WARNING!''- -comprise the text, about a girl who surprises herself by drawing whatever comes to mind—beautiful bugs, her own hand, a ``bad times'' drawing in which she scribbles everyone away, or the splashy lines of a rainbow. The believably childlike drawings exuberantly celebrate the creative process of a pint-sized artist thankfully not confined to rigid directions or staying within the lines. They burst with color and ``Flowers stretching out . . . /Fish, growing to the corners,/Frogs, blooming past the edges''- -in other words, the limitless possibilities of the imagination, where insects wave good-bye and a blob of brown becomes a friendly old gentleman reaching out of the page with a rose. (Picture book. 3-6)