THE BIRD

A twist on the tale of Noah, irreverently told and catering, in the depiction of quantities of feces, to the tired trend of grossness. ``There were no animals or people on the island, so the hermit had it all to himself,'' the story opens. The hermit likes his solitude, but a dove lands and begins to—in the euphemism employed in the text—``splat'' all over the place, including in the hermit's face. When the dove leaves, the hermit misses it; the bird returns, with Noah and the ark in tow. All the animals disembark and begin to cover the hermit's island with their own splat. Allan plays the excreta for laughs, but mixing it with even indirect biblical references—and without the saving grace of originality or real humor—is sure to offend somebody, somewhere. (Picture book. 6-9)