In Just One Second

This offbeat exploration of time describes a string of incidents that happen in a single second "somewhere in the south of the city, at 27 minutes and 32 seconds past seven o'clock." In this British import, Freytes offers unadorned text that makes a kind of surreal poem, and Morais's blocky images, all in autumnal oranges and yellows, combine toylike charm and postmodern irony. In one spread, a cockroach gazes at the hem of a woman's skirt as a shoe appears above him: "At exactly the same moment, a cockroach looked at the woman dressed in yellow, unaware of approaching danger." The man whose foot threatens the cockroach is seen by a baby in a perambulator, who is watched by a dog, who in turn is being watched by a cat in a window. The final spread shows all of the characters united in that single moment: "It all happened in just one second." It's a novel portrait of the mysteriously intertwined lives of city dwellers, and an almost philosophical reflection on the nature of time. Ages 4–7. (Dec.)