I GUESS I'LL GO EAT WORMS

The traditional kids’ gross-out song gets an appetizing makeover.

“Nobody loves me,” says a miserable-looking yellow duck who is wearing a party hat and sitting alone before a birthday cake. This opening salvo is followed by an equally gloomy lament from a gray sheep who is eating solo while four other sheep enjoy a picnic: “Everybody hates me.” The duck and the sheep, neither of whom knows the other exists, feel so sorry for themselves that each comes to the same grim decision: “I guess I’ll go eat / worms.” Independently, they imagine that ingesting worms (the “free range,” “organic-dirt fed,” fruity-colored kind that come from a can) will lead to great things: The duck will become a dance-floor dynamo with worm dance partners, and the sheep will become a gourmand (or perhaps a chef) surrounded by worm-based delicacies. But in the real world, they still have a problem to solve: loneliness. If only each animal could find a friend. The book works because the text doesn’t depend on readers’ familiarity with the original song and also because Liu’s homespun lines are catchy and snappy (“Worms roasted, worms filleted, / worms toasted, worms sautéed— / I’ll have worms three meals a day!”). The art, rendered in watercolor and digital tools, has the crisp, blocky look of cut-paper collage and is powered by the most delicious of palettes: candy pinks, chocolate browns, and the full gamut of gummy-worm colors.

A funny spin on a classic song and emotion: loneliness.