POWER AND GLORY

Quests are the stuff of fairy tales, but they also fuel many a video game. Rodda (The Timekeeper, 1993, etc.) makes clever analogies by juxtaposing video game fantasy characters—witch, goblin, vulture, ogre, etc.—with the family members of the game-playing narrator. Every time the child, absorbed in the game, is about to make an important move to escape a threatening villain, someone from the family (bearing a passing resemblance to that villain) interrupts the play. Mothers may complain when compared to a witch, brothers may bristle when lumped in with goblins, but readers will giggle when they catch on. Bold illustrations flecked with lines denoting motion translate video adventures to the page; an expressive typeface is inset with tiny sketches that suggest the animation of a screen. Although the father is compared to an evil ogre, the final pummeling of the ogre on screen seems more of a triumph of the child over distractions than a conquering of father by son. Not for psychoanalysts or pint-size pacifists. (Picture book. 5+)