cover image Luigi's All-Night Parking Garage

Luigi's All-Night Parking Garage

Joshua Schreier. Dutton Books, $12.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-525-44626-2

Like Pam Conrad's The Tub People , this picture book enters the world of a child's playtime fantasy, using characters and dramas children themselves might invent. Here, the setting is a boy's bedroom; the players, tiny figures in a variety of vehicles--cars, buses, trains, even a boat and a spaceship--who patronize Luigi's tabletop ``parking lot.'' The drivers are not always careful or well behaved, but--after an extraterrestrial, clearly parental voice intervenes--everyone settles into a spot and Luigi settles into bed. Schreier deploys shape and color splendidly, placing his luminous, mostly angular vehicles against a pitch black ``sky.'' The text nicely renders the cadence and content of solitary play, as the young attendant offers customers greetings, directions and occasional admonitions. Although this work lacks the emotional resonance of Tub People , it will appeal to imaginative children, especially those intrigued by vehicles of all sorts. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)