For Parents, Cont'd.

It's hard to imagine a better--wiser, stranger--children's book than "Rufus."

I'm not sure how I made it past thirty without having discovered this book.

In "Rufus," a bat happens to find himself at a drive-in movie. He has never seen color before--after all, he is nocturnal--so the blues and reds and yellows on the screen are dazzling. Rufus tells himself he must see more. He stays awake past daylight. Enchanted by the world's hues, he finds a paintbrush and a pallet, and he adds color to his own "hooks," his stomach, his wings. (I think the stomach gets "a big green star.")

This is great, but of course the intolerant world concludes that Rufus is a monster; someone tries to shoot Rufus out of the sky. A friendly entomologist rescues Rufus, and the two pursue moths together, and eventually Rufus returns to his nocturnal world (but he is forever enriched, forever changed).

Obviously, people have seen this as an allegory for coming out of the closet, but I don't think it needs that interpretation, and I'm not sure Tomi Ungerer had LGBT issues on his mind. To me, the book seems to be about general eccentricity--the risks and rewards of being "unusual in the world." It's Ungerer; it's gorgeous. It raises more questions than it answers. It's haunting. I'm giving it five stars.

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