Peculiar Zoo

Writer and songster Polisar serves up a series of humorous verses celebrating such oddities as the Australian numbat and the near-extinct solenodon (a rat-like creature that buries its head in a hole when attacked) as well as some slightly more familiar critters like the Floridian manatee and the emperor penguin. His sly rhymes inform the reader even as they poke fun at their subjects (``The proboscis monkey has a nose / That's certainly endowed / Proportionately larger than / A nose should be allowed''). Longtime Polisar collaborator Clark obviously had fun with this one; his witty, loosely drawn illustrations reach their zenith in the double-spread visual pun that accompanies Polisar's abbreviated ditty about the naked mole rat (``Naked mole rat. / Eek! Imagine that!''). Here, Clark pictures the subject as a nude reclining on a velvet chaise, a la Ingres's Grande Odalisque . Polisar fans will be delighted. Ages 7-12. (Aug.)