THE ADVENTURES OF MAX AND PINKY

Eaton constructs a warm affirmation of budship featuring a boy, a piglet, lots of marshmallows and not much else. Though Max and marshmallow-mad Pinky do occasionally go off in different directions, Saturday is always Adventure Day. One Saturday, when Pinky doesn’t show, a worried Max goes off to track him down. Fretting that Pinky might have been kidnapped by bunnies or some other terrible mischance, Max goes from mud hole to red barn—until a passing polar bear’s big, square, white rear end provides a vital mental association. Accompanying simply drawn pictures of a toddler-like pair, the text runs to just a line or single phrase at a time, sometimes in dialogue balloons. Fans of Janet Morgan Stoeke’s similarly terse, comic Minerva Louise tales will enjoy the sly humor, and be pleased to see the two buddies happily reunited at the end. (Picture book. 5-7)