JAKE GOES PEANUTS

It matters not a whit that Wright’s latest Jake adventure is a story so well traveled there are holes in its elbows, for it delights the ear and the eye. Jake is a one-note eater: Give him peanut butter, or give him peanut butter. “Jake always gagged on carrots, / and he hated lima beans. / His mother’s tuna casserole / would haunt him in his dreams.” So they indulge him with peanut-butter pot roast and peanut-butter rice, peanut-butter everything. Jake, once filled to the gunwales, gets the peanut-butter woozies and, voilà, carrots start looking pretty good. There is much to recommend this book, including the jocose musicality of his rhyming text—from a daydream sequence in Peanut Buttertown: “Where peanut butter waterfalls / spilled down from peanut skies, / and happy peanut people / led their nutty little lives.” His characters are deeply appealing—rarely do slug-like creatures possess so much charm—as is his scene setting, while the abundant sight jokes are wryly understated. And the quality of the book’s color alone makes it stand out; even the dark ones are buffed to radiance. (Picture book. 4-7)