WORM GETS A JOB

Suddenly faced with a need to raise cash, the limbless protagonist of Well Done, Worm! (2000) and Wow! It’s Worm! (2001) discovers that work isn’t quite the snap he expects. Needing $20 to buy materials to enter an art contest, Worm takes on a succession of odd jobs, from babysitting to newspaper delivery, housecleaning to sign painting—with uniformly unhappy results. In Caple’s cleanly drawn cartoons, it’s plain that Worm is tripped up not by his physical limitations, but by lack of judgment and the inability to follow instructions. Not that it matters, for in the end the fanciful signs that get him fired by the local grocer not only win the cart contest, but launch him on a career as a rich and successful painter. Not quite as clever as Doreen Cronin’s Diary of a Worm (2003), but close. (Picture book. 6-8)