GOBBLE, GOBBLE, SLIP, SLOP

A feline gourmand with a bad attitude eats everything and everyone that comes into reach, then gets its comeuppance at the hands—or pincers—of a pair of tiny crabs in this “Fat Cat” variant. So retains her early-20th-century antecedent’s Indian setting, depicted in vigorously stroked, calligraphic tangles, and swoops of color, but gives the language a modern, familiar cant with echoes of “The Gingerbread Boy.” Boasts the cat, “I’ve eaten five hundred cakes, I’ve eaten my friend the parrot, I’ve eaten the nosy old woman, and I can eat you too, I can, I can.” A tale that should be in every storyteller’s repertoire, in one form or another, this lively retelling makes a welcome replacement for Jeanne B. Hardendorff’s out-of-print rendition, Slip, Slop, Gobble (1970). (source note) (Picture book/folktale. 5-7)