cover image Spaghetti for Suzy Rnf

Spaghetti for Suzy Rnf

Peta Coplands. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $13.95 (1pp) ISBN 978-0-395-65232-9

A transparent and slightly didactic approach gets in the way of this story of a girl with a one-track appetite. Suzy is in a culinary rut: regardless of time or place, the only food she is interested in eating is spaghetti (``She ate it every day. Soon she wouldn't eat anything else''). One day, while consuming spaghetti in a park, she is approached by animals who use the pasta in variously novel ways. When the animals are through with their ``spaghetti in non-food applications'' demonstration, they appear with fresh fruit and fish. To entice the finicky Suzy into sampling their wares, they utter such pronouncements as ``Bananas taste of the wild, green jungle'' and ``Apples taste of windy autumn days.'' A rather gaudy palette and unrelentingly wide eyes produce a somewhat manic look in the characters and impart an unpleasantly surreal feeling. All in all, this entreaty to the picky eater is too thinly disguised and may send any child worth his or her salt scurrying for the Spaghetti-Os. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)