BRAVE POTATOES

Speed and Root (Two Cool Cows, 1995) pit a platoon of feisty prize spuds against grimacing chef Hackemup in this gleeful culinary contretemps. Once the sun sets over the county fair’s Bud and Bean Arena, the potatoes open their eyes and rumble out to sample the wild carnival ride called “The Zip”—until Hackemup, chef at the Chowder Lounge, snatches them up, singing delightedly of “Idaho and Juliet . . . Romeo and Julienne.” Speed breaks in and out of rhyme unpredictably; Root portrays the Lounge’s kitchen as a steamy vegetable hell, all huge boiling cauldrons and crisscrossed conveyor belts carrying passive, anxious-looking peppers, cabbages, eggplants, and onions to their soupy doom. Potatoes are made of sterner stuff, though, and, ganging up to push Hackemup into one of his own pots, they lead a vegetable charge out the door and down the street, carnival-ward. Any way you slice it, this tuberous triumph will have readers rolling in the aisles. (Picture book. 7-9)