THE CROW

Riffing on “The Raven” for her debut, Paul demonstrates that she’s no Poe (yet, at least) when it comes to verse—but her shadowy, skewed-perspective paper-collage illustrations do create a properly brooding atmosphere. “One morning I woke up sleepy / came downstairs to something creepy. / Outside the window sat something freaky / my eyes had never known.” Each successive glimpse of the interloper suggests to the young narrator an image—a glaring king on a throne, a smirking robber, a wizard, a pirate—that, at least in his imagination, becomes fleshed out with a turn of the page. The visitor’s true identity is never in doubt, however (see title), and watching it fly away in the end, the lad realizes that it was just as frightened of him. Younger and more timorous audiences will appreciate the take-it-or-leave-it quality of the suspense. (Picture book. 7-9)