THE THUNDERSTRUCK STORK

When Webster the stork, charged with delivering babies west of New York, has a head-on collision with a hot-air balloon, his brains get scrambled. He starts delivering his precious parcels so thoroughly wrong that he could easily get a job at the postal service: The sharks get a chicken, the giraffes a hippo, the spiders a monkey, the frogs an elephant. No worry, as the Ribberts make clear: “He’s not like the rest of the frogs that we know, / but Honey, he’s ours, and we’ll cherish him so.” Much of the reason this rhymed, topsy-turvy saga feels honest and natural is that Olson’s verse is never forced. Each word has a purpose, be it sheer entertainment or a an enticement to the imagination: “His ears were as big as a ship’s flapping sails, / and his skin was as gray as rain clouds and nails.” Munsinger’s artwork is winsome and tactile—you want to grab the hippos’ great fleshy snouts and give them a good squeeze. Arching over the whole muddle is the security of unconditional love. Hence, the next time young readers behave like rogue elephants in a family of damselflies, they will understand that such things happen and no one’s going to be thrown from the nest. (Picture book. 4-7)