DINNER AT ALBERTA'S

Here's an author/illustrator match that might have been made in heaven. What Marshall's lovably lumpish, light-headed characters have needed all along is a dose of the kind of home-truth psychology that underlies Hoban's sense of humor. Here poor Arthur Crocodile, a spade-snouted, snaggle-toothed teenager, is always picked on at dinner for his poor table manners—"Little bits of ravioli are landing on your sister. . . Arthur is diddling with his spoon. . . now he is feeling the saltshaker. . . ." All it takes is one glance from the heavy-lidded, come-hither eyes of Alberta Saurian to change him. Alberta thinks Arthur is "really adorable" and if he's to get a chance to play the song he wrote for her on his electric guitar hell have to cram in enough manners to fake his way through dinner with the Saurians. Arthur's nervousness ("Howmanydays wegot?") is contagious, and—after he takes bratty Sydney Saurian out to the treehouse for a lesson—you'll agree that "the nicest part of manners is teaching them to other people." Sly and scampish.