TULIPS

In his first picture book, a gifted storyteller who has performed worldwide tells a tale about a practical jokester whose victims finally turn the tables on him. During biannual visits to ``Grand Ma Mere'' in her sumptuous Parisian establishment, Pierre bedevils the servants with his pranks and even, one fall, plants a single black tulip among the hundreds of red ones he has enjoyed in the spring. But on his next visit, Pierre is the one surprised: every one of Grand Ma Mere's vast expanse of tulips is black—and besides, the gardener has left a grasshopper in Pierre's sock, the butler a wet sponge in his shoe, and so on. Santini deftly illustrates this satisfying comeuppance in soft pencil and watercolor, amusingly satirizing the events and glorying in the elegance of Grand Ma Mere's mÇnage. (Picture book. 4-8)