In a haute-couture tale drawn in graceful swoops of ink, Salerno (Go-Go Baby!
) creates an unlikely orange heroine with a streamlined physique and French savoir-faire. Coco the Carrot's adventure begins when she abandons a refrigerator's "cold, cramped vegetable bin." She sews a gravity-defying, leafy-green hat for herself and then, hopping on her pointy lower tip, boards a steamer for Europe. Her fellow passengers admire her hat and demand that she design toppers for them, too ("Coco wrote down their names and addresses"), but the commissions nearly come to naught when a zealous cook tries to use Coco in a soup. She falls into the ocean and floats to a tropical island (" 'It's so exotic!' she exclaimed"), where she fills the hat orders with help from an artistic monkey named Anton. Eventually, she and Anton make their Paris debut. Salerno's elegant graphics recall Jean Cocteau's pen-and-ink caricatures or the fashion-magazine style of Chesley McLaren. The frills and loop-de-loops of his curvaceous lines complement the extravagant absurdity of the characters and plot twists. The story may be frivolous and a bit wordy, but Coco has true charm. Always fresh and crisp, never rubbery, she proves that even a diminutive root veggie can live big dreams. Ages 5-8. (Mar.)
