TOM, BABETTE, AND SIMON

Shape-shifting adventures in a grand tradition. Tom, who is bored with life, becomes his cat, Charley, and Charley becomes the boy; when Tom grows tired of being a cat and wants to change back, he learns Charley himself was once a bored boy who underwent a similar transformation, and has no intention of giving up his new life. Babette's mother is a stuck-up queen who wants a daughter without any visible flaws; when the baby is born, she is invisible. Simon hunts down the Golden Bird who, as she dies, turns him into a bird from the neck up. Avi (The Barn, 1994, etc.) has a confident sense of the possibilities of fiction; his stories are rich amalgamations of magic, suspense, horror, and philosophy. The text doesn't have a polished feel, but these plots don't need itthey keep readers glued to the page simply to find out what happens next. With scratchy b&w illustrations. (Fiction. 9-12)