THE FRIGHTFUL STORY OF HARRY WALFISH

For his first solo outing, Floca (illustrator of Avi's Poppy, 1995) has created a whopper that operates on a number of levels: as a zoological exploration, as a wry cautionary tale, and as a story of just deserts. Rambunctious young Harry Walfish, whose legend lives on in the tale delivered by Ms. Leonard-Brakthurst to her rowdy charges at the Natural History Museum, made an extraordinary pest of himself when his class visited that very same institution. Harry, following a day of havoc, is inadvertently locked in the museum when it closes for the night; the exhibits come to life and scare the willies out of him. When he is finally rescued, he is a new Harry—a quiet Harry, permanently humbled. Ms. Leonard- Brakthurst's class, not surprisingly, shifts into a quiet mode, too. Floca drolly insinuates a wonderful bestiary into the story—from the rufous-rumped woodhewer (``Xiphorhynchus erythropygius, I believe,'' notes Ms. Leonard-Brakthurst) to a pygmy marmoset (Callithrix pygmaea), while his crisp, animated watercolors add to the fun. (Picture book. 5-9)