THAT PESKY TOASTER!

Goldie's toaster may look like a cross between an Electrolux and a bull terrier, but there's a whole lot more than heat in those coils. She throws in a couple of slices of bread—expecting the worst—and out swarms a minor galaxy. Goldie brooms the star cluster into submission, only to have it collapse into a black hole that settles squarely on a fresh bumbleberry pie. When Goldie's man Gus goes for a slice, he swallows more than pie and the astral ride begins. Hillman's text is down-home wry (``I need such a time-space singularity like a hole in the head,'' moans Goldie as the black hole snakes around her kitchen) with an occasional loopy rhyme, while his terrifically entertaining pen-and-ink illustrations are saturated with color and have a look that can only be described as part medieval, part industrial. The action is fast, furious, exuberant. Goldie and Gus warp in from the void and settle down; the sun now rises in the west. A minor understanding of astrophysics is required, but for readers in the know, the book pays back in spades. (Picture book. 4-8)