THE HOUSE ACROSS THE STREET

After veering off-key in By the Side of the Road (not reviewed), Feiffer bounces back into perfect pitch with another fretful, all-too-familiar litany. Not only, whines the young narrator, doesn’t the boy across the street have to go to school when it rains, he can eat when and where he wants to, everyone listens when he talks, he wins every game he plays, he has a pool in his bedroom, his house is bigger, he’s got a piranha, a shark, a lion (“Okay, I’m exaggerating”). It just gets better and impossibly better. His life is every child’s dream—or fantasy. Freely drawn watercolors give each of the depressed-looking speaker’s claims visual form, even when after watching the family opposite depart on vacation, he goes over to ring the doorbell and pretend that he’s invited in for a sleepover. Despite the subtlety of the message and the even-more-subtle conclusion, children and former children are likely to wince at how exactly the author has once again captured a common childhood tune. (Picture book. 6-8)