Little, flat Sonny Shivers and his family only know it's cold and dark where they live, and whenever the earth quakes, a monstrous hand, reaching forth in a great flash of light, snatches away part of their landscape --Buttery Cliffs, towering Mt. Ketchup . . . and with the landscape goes his family, one by one, until only Sonny is left to face the monsters. Who are they? What and where is the Shivers family? Children will delight in puzzling it all out before the Shivers do.

Fran Manushkin's dry but juicy humor, spiced with food puns, carries this droll saga through shivery perils to a warm reunion on the refrigerator door. As ever, Caldecott-winner Paul O. Zelinsky's wit makes theater of the most improbable situations.