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Book Summary

Reviewed by Peter Lewis

Maurice Sendak takes children for a joyride in this timeless nursery rhyme featuring Mickey, who tumbles from bed into the baker's night kitchen. Mickey's exploration of the strange night world is so vividly drawn readers almost live the dream, before returning safely to bed.

Is It Any Good?

4

Like a memorable nursery rhyme, Sendak's story can be a quick and easy experience, but probably even young readers will be drawn to ponder its suggestiveness. Mickey's experience comes full circle -- bed to kitchen to bed -- which gives the verse a sense of completion, though the text has some curious turnings: "Then Mickey in dough was just on his way."

Some of the book's artwork is set in multiple panels to a page, a handsome screen of images that feels like a dance sequence, following Mickey's actions as set against a panorama of the city at night, a city of saltcellar, milk carton, and egg-beater architecture.

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