WHAT IF EVERYTHING HAD LEGS?

An extended flight of fancy can take your mind right off your troubles.   

 An exhausted little girl just cannot bring herself to walk home, even though there are cupcakes waiting for her when she gets there. The girl asks her mother why the house can’t walk to them instead of the other way around. Her mother replies because if that happened, then the cupcakes might have legs too and decide to run away! The girl begins to imagine what it would be like if everything had legs, like apples, worms, rakes, leaves, cars and snails. If rocks had legs, they “wouldn’t roll. But rolls could rock!” The illustrations on this particular page spread are particularly funny; the rock and the roll are realistic, photo-collage images with cartoonlike legs protruding from them. If toys had legs, continues the girl, they would surely put themselves away, toothbrushes would squeeze the toothpaste and bubbles—why, they would boogie-woogie, of course. Once the mother and daughter arrive at home and cupcakes are served, the girl puts forth a new question: What if everything had ARMS? The brightly colored, mixed-media illustrations are interesting, even though not all share the same inventiveness as the rock/roll spread.

An amusing tale that may spark readers to embark on their own imaginative journeys. (Picture book. 4-8)