Jonah's Trash...God's Treasure

Part ""I Spy"" game and part parable, Anderson's clever picture book is an eye-catching adventure. In rhyming couplets, narrator Mr. Grungy tells the tale of Jonah and the Whale. Anderson adheres to succinct plotting in verse form, but the story grows confusing after Jonah converts the Ninevites by saying ""Change now or you will die!"" The brevity of the text doesn't allow room for an explanation of Jonah's feelings of anger toward God and bitterness toward the people of Nineveh. The real plus here is the 3-D multimedia artwork. Anderson and Goolsby have created collages from such found objects as bottle caps, telephone cords, crackers, cereal and pretzels. Despite the inanimate ingredients, the composite images of the central characters convey both mood and emotion; Jonah's face consists of a three-pronged electrical outlet sporting a thatch of beard, and the whale, comprised of a soda bottle, watch bands, a bicycle light and cooking spatulas is a glittering wonder. Each spread also contains a ""Trash & Treasure Hunt"" which challenges readers to locate particular objects in the artwork (""Find at least ten metal things/ and something which unlocks a door.""). Youngsters will find it hard to resist this fun and novel approach to studying a classic Bible story. Ages 3-up. (June)