I LOVE MY BUZZARD

An effervescent, kid-appealing parody of a popular folk song (``Yonder Tree''): An impish-looking boy details the delights of his bizarre pets (``I love my warthog and my warthog loves me./He blows his round nose on my sleeve./He borrows my toothpaste, my brush, and my floss./My mom has asked him to leave.'') Finally, Mom is so plagued by a menagerie that also features a bat, an iguana, and slugs that she leaves, so the boy packs up his pets with ``a week's worth of food in a sack'' and settles on the stoop to hope for her return. Schindler adds considerably to the merriment with artfully detailed depictions of the irrepressible collector, his righteously indignant mom, and the realistic yet delightfully expressive creatures he's harboring. Pure fun. (Picture book. 4-9)