BILL AND PETE TO THE RESCUE

The adventures of Bill the crocodile and his sidekick Pete the plover (Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile, 1987, etc.) continue with this trans-Atlantic rescue of Bill’s little cousin Jane Allison. She’s been been kidnapped from her Nile home by the Bad Guy’s Big Bad Brother, to be showcased at his Exotic Animal Farm in New Orleans. Bill and Pete get wind of the heist and stow away on the boat transporting Jane Allison. The story gets a little involved: Pete is incarcerated and Bill forms an animal liberation group with some Cajun alligators—Bubba and his cousins—whom he meets in Decatur Bayou. Pete escapes and joins Bill and the new friends in the freeing of Jane Allison and her fellow inmates at the farm. DePaola has laced the story with clever quips—Pete, who has been caught and caged on the top floor of a swanky home, says to himself, “It is lonely up here at the top,” and Bill’s mother says, “It’s times like these that I wish your father was here, and not a suitcase”—and his illustrations are highly amusing. It strains the series to work in that New Orleans backdrop, but readers will still be hoping for another glimpse—on any continent—of Bill and Pete. (Picture book. 4-8)