29 Bump Street

Pulling together an array of animated tools, appliances and utensils that may well have shown up at the casting calls for The Brave Little Toaster and Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Vaes's (The Porcelain Pepper Pot) inane tale devolves in a house with no apparent human inhabitants. Feeling neglected, Mike Hammer and the other tools rusting in the basement storm upstairs to do battle with the ""kitchen folks,"" who cede the field. The victorious tools, however, make a horrendous mess trying to cook lunch ("" `Lett-us fix something to eat,' "" Sheila Shears giggled. The tools were having a blast""). There's nothing subtle here, as the author (to use a pun that would fit right in) hammers his message home in a predictable, moralizing ending: after the sugar bowl recalls the ""sweet old days"" when all the tools used their unique skills to help one another out, they agree to cooperate. Vaes pairs the relentless string of groaners in his narrative with illustrations that anthropomorphize everything from a chair to a bottle of dishwashing liquid (the kitchen sink is the most expressive, getting its faucet in a knot after the tools devastate the room). The single-themed humor of both the pictures and the text wears thin quickly. All ages. (Sept.)