WAKING UPSIDE DOWN

In pursuit of Sendak's theme of disenchanted boys who go on fantasy adventures in the middle of the night, and Van Allsburg's style of grainy dark colors, Heckman and Been tell of a boy who finds himself exploring his own house upside down. Morton is forced to trade his large room for his twin sisters' smaller bedroom, but who can sleep with all those bunnies on the wall and fake stars on the ceiling? He does finally doze off, only to wake up and find that he has broken the rules of gravity and is now viewing the room from the vantage point of the ceiling. Morton decides to see what the rest of the house looks like and gets enough satisfaction from his private adventure to settle for making faces at his sleeping sisters and returning to the star-covered ceiling to sleep. Been's illustrations capture the slightly spooky, sneaky tone of the text, with elongated, shadowy shapes and wondrous overhead perspectives. (Picture book. 6-9)