THE VERY WORST MONSTER

Everybody knows that older siblings misbehave to take attention away from the family baby--but suppose you were a monster child whose parents were proudly saying the new baby would grow up to be ""the Worst Monster in the World"" Like Hazel in Hutchins' new humdinger, you'd want to prove you came first. But when Grandpa and Grandma Monster marvel at baby Billy's ability to bend bars, nobody looks to see that Hazel can bend bars too. When they make a fuss over Billy's growl, nobody listens to Hazel growling too. And so on, dismally. Billy, a monster to conjure with, wins the Worst Monster Baby in the World contest (by trying to eat the judge). Hazel then tries in vain to lose him, and to frighten him away. ""So she gave him away""--to a couple that, like all the freakish animals on the premises, are more creepy-looking than horrifying. (These two have been set up in the pictures, moreover, as Billy's protectors.) And when Hazel tells her parents what she's done, she gets the response she's after: ""You gave your own baby brother away! You must be the Worst Monster in the World!"" ("" 'I told you I was,' said Hazel."") But Billy, who'll be permitted to be ""the Worst Monster Baby,"" is already at hand: the people Hazel gave him to ""gave him back!"" The ogreish/crocodilian monster family is also a family-caricature, while Hazel, in topknot and pantaloons, is every little exasperated, unrepentant older sister. The little monsters of your acquaintance will be in ecstasy.