DIAL-A-CROC
by Mike Dumbleton & illustrated by Ann James
An imaginative, disarming first book: Vanessa has a unique money-making scheme. She captures a crocodile, tames him with a tough bargain, and rents him out—to a House of Horrors, a swimming team (the swimmers speed up to escape him), as a ticket- puncher and an ice-crusher—until Dial-a-Croc gets homesick and drives a poetically just reverse bargain. James's good-humored illustrations, featuring a relaxed but wickedly deft line, are a perfect match for the text's comical logic. Good fun. (Picture book. 4-7)