Absolutely Beastly Children

Krall's pen and ink drawings—part Mad magazine, part Ronald Searle—find ample scope in his authorial debut (he illustrated Sally Lloyd-Jones's Being a Pig Is Nice), an abecedary of nasty children. "A is for Andy who won't eat his peas," it opens, with a strawberry blond boy in a T-shirt whose hair leaps up like a fountain and who regards his plate with disdain. "B is for Becky who cannot say please" shows a girl with googly eyes and snaggly teeth, reaching desperately for a lollipop. Kathy, who won't brush her teeth, has lumps of repulsive green goo on her tongue; Nancy, who plays with her food, pokes a distressed-looking carrot into a mashed potato castle with broccoli landscaping. Sparks of nervous energy jump off the children, waves of stench rise from them, flies buzz around them, and they fart aggressively. Entries like "V is for Violet who does nothing right," and "S is for Sigmund who still wets the bed" won't make kids with those proclivities feel any better. More Garbage Pail Kids than Gashlycrumb Tinies. Ages 4–7. (Sept.)