DOG TALES

Unreal, occasionally surreal, these deeply fractured fairy tales feature doggy characters pawing through such stories as “Jack Russell and the Beanstalk” and “Rapawnzul.” Terrible puns tickle the text, and two supercilious cats, drawn only in black-and- white, make rude comments from the margins. Vividly colored and wildly exaggerated canines and humans populate the improbable illustrations, where the princess climbs to the top of her 20 mattresses on a ladder that is adorned with cowboy-boot feet (the story involves a Pekinese rather than a pea) and where Cindersmelly is rescued from stinkiness by a vacuum-cleaner salesman. The “Doberman’s New Clothes” explains why dogs don’t wear any, and the lead in “Little Red Riding Hound” outsmarts not a wolf, but a cat. There is only one punchline here, and children can probably handle the irony and camp, but will they want to? (Picture book. 5-10)