Another splendid tale from Egan (Friday Night at Hodges' Cafe, 1994), cautionary but with the accent squarely on the story line. Chestnut Cove, a sleepy little bohemia of hippopotami, has its peace shattered when the king sails in to announce a contest: the grower of the biggest, juiciest watermelon shall inherit his kingdom. The competition insidiously works a sour note into the bucolic atmosphere, provoking the droll citizenry into sullen nastiness. But when the chips are down, when Eloise the pig is stranded high on a precipice, the hippos close ranks, save the porker, awaken to their selfishness, and clear the rotten air. The message to this tale--greed can be a snake in any garden--is soft- pedaled; the narrative and the artwork share the front seat, with the moral dimension sitting quietly in the rear. When the hippos realize their unseemly behavior, they set it to rights without throwing about fistfuls of guilt. Egan's rich and lushly colored illustrations are pure pleasure: his townscapes and neighborhood tableaux have an immediacy that invite readers to step straight into the pages. As with his earlier work, Egan demonstrates why he is a rare bird: thoughtful, disarming, charming, and eccentric. (Picture book. 4-8)
