HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FRANKIE

PLB 0-06-028522-2 The endpapers offer a clue as to what to expect, showing an alarming array of paint, body parts, clothing, and typeface, which will be used in the workshop of a round-headed man in glasses wearing an acid-green lab coat. There are few words in this wild mishmash, most of them forming variants on the “arm bone’s connected to the . . .” pattern as the hero attempts to assemble a Frankenstein-type monster. The mismatched fonts are as screwy as everything else, scattered about the pages in happy abandon. Eventually a blue-faced, recognizable monster appears, just in time to get a party hat plopped onto his head and to blow out the candle. The monster’s response to the enthusiastic “Happy birthday, Frankie” leaves the professor in pieces; Frankie, in the last spread, is seen wrench in hand, trying to reassemble him—a task that may prove as pointless as the book. (Picture book. 4-8)