Not Inside This House!

"Livingstone Columbus Magellan Crouse,/ I'll have no bugs inside this house!/ I'll say it once. Won't say it twice./ Repeating myself will not suffice!" The overall-wearing boy who's the object of this tirade doesn't look like a troublemaker%E2%80%94his expression is thoughtful, and he moves deliberately%E2%80%94but the animals he brings home progress from bugs to small mammals and, eventually, larger ones. After he floods the house in an attempt to accommodate a whale, his mother realizes that bugs might not be so bad: "His mother thought. She made a shrug,/ then gave her son a great big hug." Newcomer Ercolini's mild-looking mother and son seem out of step with Lewis's over-the-top rants, but he shines in the imagining of megafauna lodged in a suburban house: the elephant falling through the floor into the mother's bathroom; the moose antler%E2%80%93shaped gashes on either side of the boy's bedroom door; the submerged first floor with houseplants afloat. While Lewis's (My Truck Is Stuck!) verse lacks metric integrity, its comic bombast more than compensates, and children will appreciate the plight of the story's misunderstood hero. Ages 3%E2%80%938. (Aug.)