The old folk song about the omniverous woman is a perfect vehicle for Kellogg's particular brand of gross humor and rib-nudging asides. In the manner Sendak introduced in Hector Protector, Kellogg elaborates on the rhyme in comic-style balloons; thus the first pictures read ""Howdy, Rosebud! Have some pie"" (husband). ""First I'll eat that horrid fly"" (Rosebud). ""Why? . . .Oh me. Oh my"" (parrot). The parrot itself is swallowed next (screaming ""Absurd! Absurd!"" as Rosebud shouts ""I'll eat the bird""), and the old farm woman grows gradually fatter as she devours in turn the cat, the dog and the cow -- all of whom can be heard meowing, mooing and whatever from her distended abdomen. There's an interim while Rosebud goes off to the circus, dwarfing the previous fat lady, but on her first performance she swallows a horse with the inevitable result -- ""She died of course!"" ""O world take heed! She died of greed. May she digest in peace,"" reads her tombstone. Tasteless, but kids will gobble it up.