CLARICE BEAN, GUESS WHO’S BABYSITTING?

Child demonstrates that her first Clarice Bean book was no fluke: Here again she produces a hip, brash Clarice, pitch-perfect and heart-winning. When both her mother and father are called away from home—Dad on some tedious business trip, but her mother on a much more interesting errand of mercy to her policeman brother who has slipped on a donut and broken both his legs—it is left to Uncle Ted the firefighter to keep things from flying apart at Clarice's house. While the action revolves around the disappearance of a guinea pig, Clarice is watching for her vacationing school class, and there are so many subplots and entr'actes that the story takes on the appearance of some really wild weather, like a hurricane. Mayhem reigns, but things finally return to earth, mostly in one piece. It is truly impressive how Child can create an entire personality for one of Clarice's siblings with a tossed off line—as for Clarice's older brother: "Make sure Kurt sees daylight at least once every 24 hours"—while the rest of her writing has just as much brio and dash. And her artwork couldn't be more appropriate: a barely contained swarm of collage and typefaces, bits of dialogue roaming the page, and the personification of Clarice's view of her world in the portraits of her family. Something special. (Picture book. 6-10)