The Table Sets Itself

Bored with setting the table the same, proper way night after night, Izzy and her friends Dish, Fork, Knife, Spoon, Cup, and Napkin try to mix things up. Who says you can’t sit on the table and put all the tableware into a full milk cup? Their experiments fail miserably, although they do uncover the existence of spoon flatulence and, more importantly, bring Dish and Spoon together. Faster than anyone who’s read Mother Goose can say, “Called it,” the two run away together. Clanton (Vote for Me!) packs plenty more jokes, visual asides, puns, and wordplay (“Cup felt terribly empty inside”) into the action that ensues between the elopement to a happy reunion over a dinner of mac and cheese. Throughout, his crisp drawings and liberal use of white space keep a sense of comic excess at bay. Dish and Spoon’s letters from their travels, which arrive later in the book, are an especially funny evocation of innocents abroad, bringing to mind the naïf, anthropomorphic humor of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Ages 4–8. Agent: Marietta Zacker, Nancy Gallt Literary Agency. (Sept.)