INTO THE JUNGLE
by Judy Hindley & illustrated by Melanie Epps
The author of A Piece of String is a Wonderful Thing (1993) and a greeting-card illustrator take a cautious walk down a jungle path: ``When you go into the jungle, go carefully. It's a wild place. In every shadow there could be a snake curled quietly.... You'll never see them, they're too wild and sly. Wild things never look you in the eye.'' Epps's simply drawn oils convey little of this feeling however; two children walk through a spacious, gardenlike landscape festooned with smiling animals ``hiding'' in plain sight—and making plenty of eye contact with the viewer. This poor match between text and pictures won't take readers nearly as deep into the ``wild place'' as Jane Yolen's Welcome to the Green House (1993). (Picture book. 4-6)