TUCKY THE HUNTER

Will adults really enjoy these forgettable verses inspired by Dickey's grandson? "He shot the two-horned rhino with his double-barreled gun,/ He shot the dusty python for sleeping in the sun. . . . He shot the mountainous King-Kong, whom everybody knows?/ He was holding up a kicking girl, and pulling off her clothes. . . . And he shot EVERYTHING there was, but they weren't really DEAD!/ all summer, winter, spring and fall he shot them in his bed." Suburban nighttime exploits then, with some allusive touches but without Sendak's subtle, underlying poise, and upon mother's arrival, with an obvious, comforting conclusion: the beasts sing, mother sings, sleep comes. Five-year-old Tucky's bedroom-safe adventures are hardly big game—kind of slippery for children, too slight for adults—and Marie Angel's delicate illustrations, always elegant and frequently striking, are mismatched to the mock-serious tone of the poem. Milne carried it off but Tucky, failing to resonate, remains Grandpa's loving trifle.