FRITZI FOX FLEW IN FROM FLORIDA
by Leah Komaiko & illustrated by Thacher Hurd
On a winter night, a young fox apprehensively watches an eccentric visitor, Fritzi, parachute down from an airplane with a 14-ton straw suitcase. At first she's pretty quiet, but after they bunk down in the young kit's bedroom, Fritzi begins a Mary Poppins- like unpacking: out comes a blazing tropical sun, sand dunes, a blue lagoon, four alligators and assorted other delights from Florida. Hurd's happy, snappy cartoons evoke Fritzi's pizazz more solidly than Komaiko's verse, which doesn't always swing. Events are sacrificed to the dogged pursuit of rhyme, and the feeling of forced wackiness may hinder readers' tolerance for this visitor from the south. (Picture book. 4-8)