THERE’S A DRAGON DOWNSTAIRS

McKay and Harvey offer a resolution both comforting and logical to the perennial issue of noises in the night. Every night, Sophie hears a dragon “Rattling through the cat flap. Slinking to the living room. Growing and growing in the dark.” But by the time she stumbles down, dressed in cardboard armor, carrying a “pump-action supersonic water squirter,” or dressed in her princess outfit, the room is empty. Using scribbly pencil strokes to create shadows in rooms decorated with a large and scattered collection of plush dinosaurs, Harvey depicts Sophie as a small figure in which anxiety and resolution are clearly mixed; when at last the child sneaks down quietly in her pj’s, she discovers that there really is a “dragon”—of the feline variety. This import’s repeating structure and cozy close make it a natural for reading aloud, at bedtime or any other. (Picture book. 5-7)