THE HUNGRY ONE

A disturbing allegory illustrated with haunting surreal portraits—photos of torsos with expressive human hands, topped with melancholy mixed-media heads. The succinct, neatly translated verse describes ``Rum Tum Tum,'' an awkward, sad-eyed man who eats the miller's garden and then ``in the forest, dark and grim,/Devoured the trees that sheltered him''—just the beginning of his voracious progression. Denied the miller's daughter as wife, he warns, ``I grew without a mother's love...That's why my eating's never done...'' After a seven-year absence, he returns to devour the miller and his daughter and then, after he's jailed, his chains and the prison warders. As an incarnation and explanation of evil, this is hardly obscure, though young people may find it weird and even—in a black, European fashion—humorous. Offbeat, but the art and verse are compelling, while the theme may well provoke discussion. (Picture book. 9-14)