A TWISTED TALE

Fisher punches up a well-worn plot with vivid language and swirling modernist art that incorporates an equally wild hand-lettered text. After a twister that “howled like a prom queen steppin’ on a cow patty” passes, young Bailey discovers that the farm animals have switched identities: the pig’s quacking, the cow’s sitting on the nest, the duck is chewing its cud. What to do? The vet shrugs, hypnosis fails, even psychoanalysis (visualize that cow on a couch) doesn’t work. Finally, after a flash of inspiration, Bailey leads her mangled menagerie off to a carnival where a ride on (what else?) The Twister spins the animals back to their old selves. But Bailey comes out—curled. “Uh-oh,” her American Gothic parents mutter. Readers who find Causley’s “Quack,” Said the Billy Goat (1986), or Most’s Cow That Went Oink (1990) a trifle sedate won’t have that problem with this unrestrained solo debut. (Picture book. 6-8)