BARNYARD LULLABY

The clucking, mooing, neighing, oinking, baaing, and honking of the barnyard animals are just so much noise to the farmer in his bed, but these are melodic lullabies to the animals in the barn. ``Tuck your legs beneath you,/Legs that love to run./Feel them growing ever stronger./Let the day be done,'' a horse sings to her foal. The farmer, desperate to sleep, goes to the window to holler, ``BE QUIET!'' and wakes up his baby, who wails in a chorus all his own. The farmer's wife cradles the baby in her arms, rocking and singing as the other farmyard mothers have done, and soon, all are asleep. In a book that answers the preschooler's wish to point at animals and ``sing'' along, Asch (Water, 1995, etc.) illustrates each lullaby with the simplicity of his Moonbear books; the musical score at the end sets the animal poems to music. (Picture book. 1-3)