SNAKES!

A good and creepy (slithery just doesn’t capture the reason your neck hairs may stand on end) story of a boy and the uninvited snakes in his life, from Greenberg (who likes his creatures on the outré side: he has also tackled insects, skunks, and, famously, slugs). What is so effective here—other than Munsinger’s swarming, snaky watercolors—is that Greenberg never gets cute, but keeps the verse highly palpable: “With a horrifying rustle / Of cartilage and muscle / Very very slowly they unwind / Tongues abruptly flickering / Whispering and snickering / They wriggle off to see what they can find.” Greenberg does, however, know how to mix the fanciful with the real. “Reticulated belly snakes / sea snakes, tree snakes / Peanut-butter jelly snakes / Hyperactive flea snakes.” And Munsinger wraps her considerable wit around every loopy possibility, ensnaring her readers in a final constrictor-like hold. Come, child, and enjoy a snake or two, these “pyroclastic streams of melted crayon.” (Picture book. 6-8)