THE GREAT KETTLES

Having met the Sandman himself in Ship of Dreams (1994), Joey falls in with a larger cast of elementals, including Father Time and Mother Nature. Now living in an inventor's long-vacant house, Joey constructs a time machine from notes and gadgets left in the attic, and hurtles off across the Sea of Time to the islands where the keepers of the sun, moon, stars, and weather live—jamming the great clock that measures out Perpetual Absolute Standard Time (P.A.S.T.) in the process. Getting it started again, and getting home, requires a short, easy quest. Morrissey's large accompanying paintings are models of magic photo-realism; he assembles into fantastical machines a variety of antique keys, charms, brasswork, and dented, peeling old toys, and places them into settings in which every leaf and nail is precisely limned. Readers are likely to ignore the unexceptional plot and characters to pore over the pictures, which are executed with dazzling virtuosity. (Picture book. 7-9)