Innocent, Readable
Freeman—or whoever is reading the story—plays the role of the innocent observer, casually narrating the plot.
Late that evening, when all the shoppers had gone and the doors were shut and locked, Corduroy climbed carefully down from his shelf and began searching everywhere on the floor for his lost button. Suddenly he felt the floor moving under him! Quite by accident he had stepped onto an escalator—and up he went! (8-9)
You can almost hear the change in the storyteller's voice when Freeman arrives at the word suddenly, and that's intentional. As we've mentioned, Corduroy is a read-aloud book, and the dashes and exclamation points throughout the story act as visual cues for a vocal change.
There are no Proustian turns of phrase or Dickensian descriptions of the idyllic setting here, but Freeman doesn't need them. Combined with the illustrations, the text gives readers exactly enough information to follow along with the story without overwhelming them.