BOBBY BRAMBLE LOSES HIS BRAIN

Faint but distinct echoes of “Gingerbread Boy” resound through this tale of a young daredevil whose brain takes advantage of a headfirst fall to make a bid for freedom. Scuttling off like a curly pink toupee on legs, the brain evades the mailman and other pursuers—leaving Bobby, as his little sister puts it, “Dumb as an onion” until he takes off after it and, acting (obviously) “on gut instinct alone” successfully corrals it back into his cranium. All jug ears and gangly, flung-out limbs, Bobby makes a suitably daffy center for Clark’s comic cartoons, and so high is the escapade’s visual energy that some of the pop-eyed figures spill past the page edges. Letting no opportunity for a double entendre go by (“Bobby’s body somehow sensed that life without a brain would be a hollow one”), Keane keeps the pacing as quick as the wit. Truly, a no-brainer. (Picture book. 6-8)