From Booklist Gr. 2-5. It's Stevenson's seventh Corn book, and he's at his best, with elemental words and ink-and-watercolor illustrations that make you see ordinary city things as if for the first time. It would take paragraphs to describe what each of the small, casually scribbled drawings and simple poetic lines show in one double-page spread separately and together (waiting "for the talk to end . . . for the truck to come"). The words and pictures always extend one other, opening up new views of what you thought you knew, from the story of a pencil with the eraser gone ("Somebody must keep changing his mind") to imagining what could be inside the huge, lumpy backpacks kids carry to school ("two skate boards . . . The family dog"). A few sketches are mainly for adults, but most are for children, revealing humor in daily things, and dreams. Suddenly there's a sweeping view across time and space: the turnpike, crowded with traffic, and on the opposite page, the way it used to be, a path you can barely see as it disappears through the woods. There's much to talk about at home and to get kids writing in the classroom. Hazel Rochman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved About the Author James Stevenson is an op-ed contributor to the New York Times. His popular column, "Lost and Found New York," has appeared regularly in the newspaper since 2003. He was on the staff of The New Yorker for more than three decades; his work includes 2,000 cartoons and 80 covers, as well as reporting and fiction. He is also the author and illustrator of over 100 children's books. He lives in Connecticut.