THE QUEEN OF EENE

Prelutsky's latest forays into freakdom are in the nonsense rather than the nightmare vein, but Prelutsky's nonsense is not the usual innocuous word play. His cast includes Adelaide, who's ""quite dismayed; the more she ate, the less she weighed""--and who finally disappears after swallowing her last crumb; Herbert Glerbett, rather round, who ""swallowed sherbet by the pound"" and then dissolves into a strange gooey puddle; witchy Gretchen concocting a repulsive stew (""two candied eyeballs, sweet and round""); and Uncle Bungle who eats a baker's yeast cake and shoe-polish pie and ends up rising and shining in the sky. Others collect pancakes, talk backwards, grow pumpkins from their nostrils, or devour auto parts--just the sort of overindulgence small children delight in. And merely to imagine Prelutsky and Chess together is to wonder who it hadn't happened sooner; to witness the ghoulish result is sheer glee.