cover image Run! Run!

Run! Run!

Harriet Ziefert. HarperCollins Publishers, $3.95 (22pp) ISBN 978-0-694-00097-5

Drescher's oddball animals romp through these four Leap, Shake, Hoot and Gulp books: Run! Run! (where turtles creep, warthogs scurry and baboons leap); All Gone! (mice gnaw, bears lunch, kangaroos graze); Cock-A-Doodle-Doo! (owls hoot, horses whinny, goats bleet, waiting for night to pass); and All Clean! (hippos soak, lions lick, monkeys pick). The texts are lively, although Ziefert blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction when she has a rabbit roar (from a lizard's perspective, a rabbit does roar). Parents may have to sort out the facts, but these books may well give children their first look at art as offbeat as Drescher's, colored in richly varied hues, with perplexed-looking flamingos, and overzealous chicks breaking out of their shells. This foursome is fast-paced and fun. (1-4)