CRUNCH MUNCH

Filling his short, rhymed, repetitive text with chomps, crunches, slurps, slops, and other sounds of chowing down, London (Snuggle Wuggle, 2000, etc.) invites young children to compare their own eating habits to those of a frog, giraffe, aardvark, cow, and other animals. Rex takes some liberties with the premise, as his beaver isn't eating, but chipping away at a tree (and, not to split hairs, but a cat lapping up milk isn't exactly "eating" either), but by suspending his large, smiling figures against white backgrounds he focuses the viewer's attention, and captures the tone and simplicity of the writing, nicely. A reprise at the end gives listeners a chance to repeat "Nibble, bibble," "Sluuurp—GULP," "Zap! Zap! Zap!," and "Lippety-lap." It's not Denise Fleming's Lunch (1992)—or for that matter Peter Spier's classic Gobble, Growl, Grunt (1971)—but it does cheerily celebrate the pleasures of noisy eating while deftly introducing the idea that for us such behavior is an option, not a necessity. (Picture book. 4-6)