GIANT MEATBALL

In the fine tradition of stories featuring oversized food, here’s a cautionary tale about a narcissistic meatball who comes to a bad and sudden end. So full of himself is the boulder-sized ’ball bounding destructively through pastures, gardens and streets that he ignores the farmer’s bleats of protest, the marmalade-maker’s boiling fury and even—kiss of death—the librarian’s furious shushing. Weinstock’s writing, which features lines like “But the giant meatball was too woozy with whirling and whistling to listen,” outpaces his cartoon art—which owes much to James Marshall’s for the way figures are depicted, and centers on a rotund protagonist that, being colored an odd shade of off-pink, looks more like silly putty than anything you’d want to eat. Nonetheless, once the meatball rolls over the Mayor his fate is sealed, and he ends his mad career as all meatballs must. Yum. (Picture book. 6-8)