YO, HUNGRY WOLF!

Three well-known tales featuring the big bad wolf, retold in witty, rhythmic rap and cleverly linked. ``He blows at his foes till his lungs feel all tattered./The pigs feel exposed `cause their house has been scattered''—but though the wolf's ``got a plan/For house infiltratin','' he's a natty dresser who boggles at the soot in the chimney and sets out for ``Little Red's'' Grandma's in hopes of an easier meal. These two feisty contemporary females also outwit him, and Red insults him, too: though he's ``feeling sort of pretty in the old lady's lace,'' she says, ``you look foolish and ugly in Granny's nightgown.'' Swearing off little girls, the wolf has better luck with junk food—at a bakery where a foolish boy has just shouted, untruthfully, ``Fire!''—so that no one believes that a wolf is devouring his doughnuts. It's all good, nonviolent fun, much abetted by Lewin's marvelous cartoon-style illustrations. Freely drawn in broad, relaxed lines that often capture a subtle nuance in a single stroke—the set of Red's mouth, the droop of a wolf's whisker—they add a lot to the characterizations and humor. Irresistible for reading aloud. (Picture book. 4-10)