I'm sorry about yesterday--we're all getting better, but things seem to be moving at a snail's. And one child's interruption led to the loss of yesterday's work. But here I am with...
Catherine and Laurence Anholt, Come Back, Jack! (Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 1993).
The endpapers of this little book are filled with nursery rhymes, and the title page features a picture of two little children sitting together over a book. "There was once a little girl who didn't like books," this story begins. But her little brother Jack does, and one day, when she is supposed to be watching him, he disappears into his book. She hurries after him, to find herself standing on a hill, listening to the sound of crying--it's Jill at the bottom, just having tumbled down. But Jack has moved on. His heroic sister follows him through one rhyme after another, until at last they emerge from the book. The Anholts always create such sweet confections of children that this slight book is hard to resist, and tremendously exciting for those who can see the delicate web of references being built.