A lad pays the price for misdeeds past when he falls into a mistreated story book. Child explores this salutary premise in big, scribbly collages made of clipped photos and wallpaper applied over a double gatefold of a formal ball and other fairy-tale scenes. Falling asleep over his reading matter, Herb finds himself an interloper in “The Three Bears,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and other classics. He gets a very hostile reception—no surprise, as he horns in on Goldilocks’s big scene, and sees what’s happened since he clipped out Prince Charming to make a card for his mother, drew a mustache on the prince’s mother, and glued pictures of telephones onto every tale (look for them). Worse yet, thanks to careless reinsertion of some loose pages, Cinderella’s family—and the dialogue balloons in which they express their extreme displeasure—are upside down. Happily, once Herb makes his escape up a tottering pile of text, he does his best to mend matters—for all but the irascible Goldilocks, that is. Big good book, indeed. (Picture book. 7-9)
