WHO COMES?

A suspenseful, mostly rhyming poem about African animals, vivid in its images of the savanna, but even more vivid in the incessant iambs and repetitions that build tension almost to the end of the book before it is dramatically released. A lion comes to the watering hole and watches, unobserved, as other animals arrive one by one—wildebeest, waterbuck, giraffe. Finally, a zebra draws near; the lion kills it. The anxious rhythms and repeated phrases- -``Who comes? Who?'' and ``He does not see the lion creep''— produce keen, mounting excitement. The full-bleed watercolors depict both grand landscapes and close-ups of African mammals and plants. Although they have plenty of color and breadth, they pale next to Chandra's picturesque text. (Picture book. 4-8)