cover image The Crumbly Coast

The Crumbly Coast

David Lyon. Doubleday Books for Young Readers, $14.95 (1pp) ISBN 978-0-385-32079-5

Lyon (The Runaway Duck) stirs several consciously quirky elements into this picture-book parody, resulting in a stiff, nonsensical concoction. A woman named Olivia and ``her live mink, Slinky,'' are out for a drive and stop at a cafe run by orphans. The orphans are devastated because a batch of cookies has been stolen; Olivia and Slinky, pursuing the crime, discover that a mountain tribe of talking, colorfully attired bears has innocently taken the cookies for use in a ritual. (Why orphans? Why an ursine cookie ritual? Who knows?) The weird proceedings are made even stranger in the deliberately static watercolors. The square-bodied figures, with their serious countenances and frozen attitudes, look like statues. The occasional flash of humor (e.g., a line in the bears' ritual verse refers to ``a building painted peach,/ And bakers singing, each to each'') and the sendup of detective fiction won't resonate much with the target audience; this disjointed, impenetrable story is an easy miss. Ages 5-8. (Aug.)