There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Book

The fairy tale goes meta in this convoluted mystery about an "old woman" searching for her six missing children. When she sets out into the family's bookshelf neighborhood to find them, her quest takes her in and out of various classic nursery rhymes and children's stories that involve everyone from the three bears to Jack and Jill to Humpty Dumpty. Each character the woman meets reports that something important of theirs is missing, too (one of the three pigs is without a bundle of sticks, and the Wicked Witch is missing her supper). After the (rather predictable) culprit is revealed, the seekers reclaim their lost treasures, and the woman's children and partner turn up. The detailed illustrations have a digital, cartoonlike quality and cleverly incorporate books themselves as objects, but arid writing ("Excuse me, Bears. Did my kids pass by here?") and slack plotting are never quite overcome. Ages 3-6. (Oct.)