Probuditi! by Chris Van Allsburg (2006) is more fun and less dark than the few other books I’ve read by him. The cover is a little creepy, but the story isn’t. This is a story about the shenanigans that siblings play on one another. Calvin seems to enjoy tormenting his younger sister, Trudy. At the beginning of the story, he gets scolded for putting a rubber spider in her bed. It happens to be his birthday and his mother gives him two tickets to a magic show. When Calvin and his friend Rodney are stuck babysitting Trudy after the show, they decide to hypnotize her, just as the magician did to the woman in the cover art. Trudy behaves like a dog and the two boys can’t figure out how to release her from their hypnotic spell. That is, until a bucket of cold water causes her to cry just as mother returns home. Consequently, Calvin doesn’t get his birthday dinner. But this wouldn’t be a Van Allsburg story without a little mystery. So the ending is two pages later. It leaves you saying, “What?”
