Bamboozled

Visual jokes and trompe l'oeil overflow from newcomer Legge's watercolors as a girl visits her grandfather and notices that ``something seem[s] odd.'' There is no dearth of candidates, for in Grandpa's house nothing is ordinary. Grandpa pours his visitor tea from a watering can; a kangaroo washes dishes with water that streams from an elephant's trunk; the cat watches fish in what is either a TV show or an actual acquarium. Finally the girl puts her finger on the problem-furnishing perhaps the reader's greatest surprise, she points out merely that Grandpa's socks are mismatched. The laugh they share demonstrates that the girl is in fact well acquainted with the eccentricities of her grandfather's household (rather than being, as the reader has most likely been imagining, colossally unobservant). This clever turnaround gives dimension to an otherwise slim premise, providing a satisfying last laugh. Satisfying as well are the multiplicity of discoveries to be had in the illustrations, at once hyperrealistic in their style and surreal in their content. The visual possibilities can be plumbed for hours. Ages 4-7. (Mar.)