TEN LITTLE ELEPHANTS

Leydenfrost's elephants are eliminated one by one, in a variety of disasters that have nothing to do with each other or with elephants; one is thrown through a swinging door, one skips into a tree, one falls into a stew pot, etc. The rhymes go the singsong ten Indians pattern one better (or more accurately, one worse): ""Eight little elephants/ Skated at eleven./ A patch of ice was thin. . ./ And then there were seven./ Seven little elephants/ In a sticky fix./ The mud was really quicksand. . ./ And then there were six."" And like the text, the pictures are deliberately crude and childlike without the charm and spontaneity that redeems that manner.