THE YAK, THE PYTHON, THE FROG

Kellogg unites these three animal rhymes from The Bad Child's Book of Beasts and More Beasts for Worse Children and puts them in the pictured context of a little gift and her father driving up in their Rolls to select an unusual pet from Lady Alice Tinderpop's Rare and Strange Beast shop. The period elegance of Kellogg's settings (all chandeliers and gilt-framed portraits) complements the well bred British naughtiness of the rhymes and, though the author might not have countenanced the vulgarity, actually Kellogg's proclivities for slobbering tongues and bulging bellies and the like are quite suited to Belloc's delight in man-eating animals and other such innocent indelicacies. A diverting revival.