DAFFY DOWN DILLIES

A frequent contributor to The New Yorker selects 37 of his favorite limericks and illustrates them with witty, detailed pen drawings; O'Brien's odd characters and their calm acceptance of the ridiculous situations described in the verses are much in the spirit of Lear's own simpler, but notably adroit, sketches. The better to attract modern readers, O'Brien adds watercolor in gently glowing colors and sometimes combines several limericks in a single comically imaginative spread—e.g., the old man with a beard full of birds is one of three characters up the same whimsical tree, and another amusing trio is caught at sea—one with a boat that's not afloat, another on a goose, and the third, ``who placidly sat on a post...and called for some hot buttered toast.'' An unusually felicitous introduction to this well-loved, zany humorist. (Poetry/Picture book. 4-8)