THE GIANT CARROT

``It grew and it grew and it grew'' is a familiar chant among readers who know the classic Russian folktale of the giant turnip. Picture, instead, one heck of a carrot, along with a rollicking ensemble of barefooted folks just itching to drink a tall glass of carrot juice, or, as Mama Bess puts it, ``park my lips on a wide bowl of carrot stew.'' She, Papa Joe, and Brother Abel, plant the teeny-tiny seed and water it, but it is sweet Little Isabelle who sings and dances that carrot sprout right up out of the ground. In fact, her singing and dancing seem to be the reasons that carrot become enormous, which no one realizes until it pops out of the ground on Little Isabelle's high note. In scenes that exhibit Root's characteristically zany, uninhibited style, Little Isabelle somersaults outside a tumbledown shack stacked five deep with jars of carrot juice and relish; a pink Chevy perches atop cinderblocks, and Mama Bess soars through the air and lands on a pig. The watercolor and gouache illustrations, lit by orange sunsets, are perfectly paired with a countrified dialect—their ``mouths fell halfway to their toes''—that adds to the down-on-the-farm flavor. A recipe for carrot pudding tops off this frolicsome adaptation of an old tale. (Picture book. 3-8)