TIGER SOUP

The gifted author of Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti (1992, Jane Addams Award) debuts as a picture-book illustrator with lively, handsome collages of cut, textured paper. The story is classic Anansi: The tiger has cooked up a delicious soup when Anansi the spider comes along and tricks hungry Tiger into jumping into deep water. After guzzling all the soup himself, Anansi makes up a song and gets an innocent troupe of monkeys to sing it: ``Just a little while ago/We ate the Tiger soup!'' When the angry tiger hears the song, he chases them into the treetops, ``where they been living safe, safe ever since.'' Temple provides not only a well-honed narrative along with the illustrations but also a splendid dividend: an alternate, dramatic version, complete with stage directions and larger spoken parts for six monkeys, printed inside the jacket. A winning entry. (Folklore/Picture book. 4-9)*justi