PIGNIC

The pig family is gathering for its annual picnic, to which each member brings a different food: ``Auntie Anne made apple pie./Ben brought beans from Boston./Cousin Cabe baked carrot cake./Some dates arrived with Dustin.'' The uppercase and lowercase forms of each letter appear in the top outer corner of its page; the challenge is to find all the letter's uses in the alliterative text. X, as usual, is the spoiler: ``Max brought extra jelly.'' Miranda (Does a Mouse Have a House?, 1994, etc.) uses the last page to display a list of all the letters and their corresponding foods. The fun is in the pastel-colored illustrations: Each of the quirkily attired, bipedal pigs is distinctive, and fans of Audrey Woods's Horrible Holidays (1988) will already know what Hoffman can do with a gathering of eccentrics. Here the backgrounds become progressively more crowded and antic; readers can follow the trials of Fern, who is trying to keep the lid on ``fifty fish'' she's frying, or savor visual puns—Karl's kumquat mousse appears to be garnished with a moose antler. There have been other alliterative alphabets keyed to cuisine (Crescent Dragonwagon's Alligator Arrived with Apples, 1987; Anne Shelby's Potluck, 1991); if this one isn't a great abecedarium, it is a terrific ``pignic'' book. (Picture book. 4-6)