PANDA-MONIUM!

Panda parade seeks sweet bamboo. It begins with a single young panda named Beckett, "empty tummy rumbling / he needed some bamboo." Beckett climbs a hill, where he's spotted by two other (identical-looking) pandas. Before long..."down the hill they promptly rolled / to follow Beckett as he strolled." This trio passes a few more pandas, sleeping in a field of flowers and dreaming of bamboo. They join the others, marching through a forest, where four pandas are playing leap-the-bear; naturally, this quartet also joins the line, realizing "they were hungry too / for tall and wobbly, fun and gobbly / sweet bamboo to chew." Four more pandas are hiding in tall greenery near the road where the 10 pandas pass, and they too join the snaking line. Through it all, Beckett is clueless that he has attracted such a large number of followers. He climbs a gingko tree to look for bamboo, and all the others do likewise; the tree rocks to and fro, then pandas "bounce high and low" (the "panda-monium" of the title). The book's design highlights some phonetically fun words (blur, shimmy). Vasylenko's pandas are modeled, with manufacturer's permission, on Ty, Inc., plush toys, and Beckett himself is a trademarked character. The whole is pleasant enough but unmemorable—probably not even enough to sell a soft toy or two. (Picture book. 3-6)