BULLFROG POPS!

Some amusing plays on words, and a keen device for keeping little hands turning pages doesn’t quite succeed in this picture book from Walton (So Many Bunnies, 1998, etc.). Bullfrog heads for Ravenous Gulch, and he sure is hungry when he gets there. He swipes a pizza from Starvin’ Marvin, picks a watermelon, steals bread from a bakery, takes apples from a tree, and finally ends up in Ravenous Gulch’s Fine Groceries, Fine Dining, and Fine Art Emporium where he eats everything in sight with such enthusiasm that he knocks the pictures from the walls. Bullfrog finds salvation, though, when the townsfolk realize they have a contender for the County Super Eater Contest. Most pages end with a word in boldface; its meaning changes with the turn of the page, e.g., the bullfrog “bolts” on one page, implying that he’s hopping away, but the next page reveals that what he bolts is “the door shut.” The action appears on square paintings offset by white borders and full of skewed perspectives. The images combined with the squiggly, hard-to-decipher typeface will make this hard on newer readers, but they might appreciate the language: “Stop eatin’ my apples, you canyon-mouthed fruit catcher!” (Picture book. 6-9)