BUBBLE TROUBLE

Those lucky enough to have heard Mahy recite it will remember the title poem here, beginning "Little Mabel blew a bubble and it caused a lot of trouble—/Such a lot of bubble trouble in a bibble-bobble way./For it broke away from Mabel as it bobbed across the table,/Where it bobbled over Baby, and it wafted him away": a masterpiece of witty legerdemain with sound and sense in a breathtaking score of quatrains involving an entire neighborhood before "the baby boy was grounded and his mother held him tight." The other entries—two more narrative poems and two imaginative tales—aren't up to the same standard (hardly anything could be, even from Mahy), but they're amusing enough, especially a ridiculous tale about an alligator and a crocodile, disguised as the respective grandparents of a courting human couple who fall in love and elope. Acting, for the first time, as her own illustrator, Mahy provides drawings that, while less deft than her wordplay, offer lively glimpses of the author's own insights into her characters. For that hilarious first poem, which should become a classic, a must. (Poetry/Fiction. 8-12)