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Fasten your seatbelts! Get ready for a wild and wonderful, rollicking romp about a telephone ringing off the hook. As we plunge into the story, our narrator (who apparently runs a bizarre, 24-hour, all-purpose supply house) has just answered a call from an elephant: "What do you want?"/I asked him up front./"If I had my druthers,"/he said in a mutter,/"I'd order some more of your peanut butt... More

Fasten your seatbelts! Get ready for a wild and wonderful, rollicking romp about a telephone ringing off the hook. As we plunge into the story, our narrator (who apparently runs a bizarre, 24-hour, all-purpose supply house) has just answered a call from an elephant: "What do you want?"/I asked him up front./"If I had my druthers,"/he said in a mutter,/"I'd order some more of your peanut butter." The flood of outrageous phone requests continues, including a crocodile needing galoshes, baboons asking for spoons, and a kangaroo looking for Winnie-the-Pooh. The final affront occurs just as the overworked narrator is drifting off to sleep, when a desperate rhino calls for assistance in dragging a hippo out of a swamp.

In this lively translation of Kornei Chukovsky's classic Russian nonsense poem, Jamey Gambrell keeps the rhyming tempo tapping and the silliness in high gear. The illustrations by Vladimir Radunsky, who also created the brilliantly bold and wacky characters in Yucka Drucka Droni and The Maestro Plays, only add to the fervor--vivid paintings and collage are layered on expansive blocks of vibrant color, including wallpaper and fabric. Adults may never have witnessed a stronger argument for call-screening, but kids are sure to giggle the next time the phone rings. (Ages 4 to 8)

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