Snake Supper

Alternating whole and half-pages put a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't twist on a tale of mealtime mayhem. In short order, a hungry snake swallows a mouse, a goat, two chimps and a tiger-but instead of supper, the ravenous reptile winds up with his just deserts. And while kids might be initially alarmed by this wholesale feasting, they will likely applaud the solution achieved by an ingenious elephant. Durant's no-frills storytelling relies on a heavy dose of kid-pleasing sound effects: ""`Rrrrrr! Rrrrr!' roared the tiger. `Sssssssupper,' hissed the snake.'' Parker's watery colors and rudimentary illustrations, however, are less successful, with bug-eyed animals exhibiting often ungainly expressions. The book's shape-longer horizontally than vertically-allows the snake to stretch out to his full, polka-dotted length, but little advantage is taken of the half-page inserts. Ages 3-6. (Apr.)