MAX CLEANS UP

Corduroy’s pocket has nothing on Max’s. While sainted big sister Ruby scurries busily about restoring order to his gloriously cluttered room, Max surreptitiously rescues treasures from the trash, including the dirt from his Power City Rocker Crusher dump truck, an open tube of “Miracle Bubbles,” ants escaped from the ant farm, an ancient Easter egg, and a half-melted Popsicle. Wells hasn’t changed her stumpy sibs, aside from making them even bigger and more portly, but here she places them amidst low relief collages constructed from, among other media, paper, feathers, gravel, rubber ants, and large, brightly colored blobs of—something. The effect isn’t entirely successful; though everything bursts from Max’s bulging pocket in a grand climactic spill, it hasn’t mixed or smeared together at all, making a mess that is, paradoxically, very clean-looking. Still, it’s a good try, as droll as ever, and sure to draw plenty of giggles from the burgeoning Max and Ruby fan club. (Picture book. 3-5)