CUSTARD SURPRISE

This I Can Read series entry hits bottom, and just might have Ursula Nordstrom hurling thunderbolts from her office in heaven. Chickens Dinah and Rufus open a diner, with Rufus cooking and Dinah handling the front. Their proffered menu, which includes beanburgers, carrot crumble and the titular dish, is spurned by a succession of animal customers, each of whom fancies more species-specific fare. When Crow wants worms, Rufus offers jam-tinted spaghetti. Bear orders honey and gets a mustard-syrup mix. Each animal is duped successfully—even Donkey, who’s served doctored straw from the roof instead of hay. The bait-and-switch antics seem nasty, not funny. The formula’s right—plenty of repetition, cartoonish illustrations that explicate the text—but the weirdness of a pair of chickens hawking custard—inviting customers to eat their embryonic progeny, as it were, and eating it themselves in the penultimate spread—well, that’s the last straw. (Easy reader. 4-8)