ONCE UPON MACDONALDS FARM

"While it is true that MacDonald had a farm," Gammell begins, "it wasn't much of a farm, and he had no animals." So, as Gammell's version goes, he buys some—an elephant (for the plowing), a baboon (for eggs!), and a lion (to milk). But while MacDonald sleeps exhausted, after his first day's chores, the animals decide to leave. Next evening MacDonald's neighbor fixes him up properly, with a home, a cow, and a chicken, and MacDonald starts the next eager day with an "Ei-ei-oh"—walking along behind the plow to which, the picture shows us, he's harnessed his new chicken. It's the sort of laid-back, waggish nonsense that should amuse children just past learning the song and the proper functions of the animals. And Gammell's soft pencil drawings, appropriately ramshackle and sly, refrain from making a circus of it.