HUNCHES IN BUNCHES

What happens when a Dr. Seuss kid can't make up his mind turns out to be an exaggerated and slap-happily visualized version of what might happen to anyone. First the kid gets a Happy Hunch that he should be outside, but then a Real Tough Hunch reminds him of his homework. Both hunches are personified as the familiar, Seussian, goofy human-animal figures in union-suit costumes and large hand-shaped hats—as are the subsequent Better, Sour, Very Old, Spookish, Four-Way, Nowhere, Up, Down, and Super hunches that have the boy running around in circles, climbing slablike stars in space, and going through all the other frenzied motions now routine for Seuss. The kid finally follows a Munch Hunch to the kitchen for a six-hot-dog lunch. The bearded purple Down Hunch is a silly extravagance dealt with a touch of éclat, but mostly this is just one more product of the Dr. Seuss machine set on automatic.