BUZ

A clever concept, executed with style and wit. Buz the mosquito-like bug is swallowed by a boy eating cornflakes. A doctor sends a pair of pills to get rid of the bug. What follows is a child's view of how medicine works: The pills are fascistic policemen tracking Buz through unlikely anatomical territory. Buz is certainly not the usual cute, fluffy protagonist created with preschoolers in mind, for whom the content of this tale is perfectly suited, but in his debut as an author, Egielski is in complete command of his artistic material. His hero is sympathetic if ugly, and his villains are soulless and vaguely futuristic. The story is carried by the pictures, making words hardly necessaryexcept for Buz's one line of dialogue, uttered more than once, but always with punch. A case could be made against the undermining of authority figures in the rendering of the cold, bungling cops. Let others make it. The book is good, clean fun. (Picture book. 3-7)