THE OWL WHO BECAME THE MOON

Two themes—a ride on a steam train beneath a full moon, and the wild animals that might be ranging through the snow-covered mountains beyond the train's windows—are linked in a simple, poetically evocative text in which the owl rather enigmatically ``sits on a limb/and winks and whoos/and becomes the moon''; several of the animals curl up in their burrows and fall asleep; and the train goes on its way, its sounds contrasting with the otherwise prevailing silence. As he did for Aylesworth's Country Crossing (1991), Rand catches the drama of the starlit scene and the train's passage, its lemony light piercing the clouds of snow and billows of steam, while his rendering of the animals—in broad, rough line and adroitly splashed watercolor—is wonderfully free and sure. More a lullaby than a story; slight, but attractive. (Picture book. 3-7)