Picky Mrs. Pickle

Anyone who has attempted to persuade someone stuck in their ways to try something new will find an ally in this tale of an eccentric who finally gives in. ""I needn't ever change because I'm happy where I'm at,"" declares Mrs. Pickle, who wears nothing but green and eats nothing but pickles: pickle parfait ice cream, pickle bread, pickle pie. Her poodle and alter ego, Dill, sports a green sweater and eats pickles from a green dog dish. Schneider's (Jeremy's Muffler) art features wildly skewed perspectives, an impressive array of verdant, distorted shapes and loads of funny details: a warty atomizer of ""eau de pickle no. 19""; a pickle-shaped dish on a similarly shaped coffee table; even the protagonist's figure resembles a giant, plump pickle. When her niece finally bribes and bullies Mrs. Pickle into sampling some eggplant ripple ice cream, the heroine realizes she has been missing out. The rhyming text is sometimes clever, sometimes flat, as in the lines ""Little Sophie Claire,/ however, always/ speaks her mind./ She's Mrs. Pickle's/ youngest niece,/ and she's/ one of a kind."" While readers may still shrink from sampling eggplant ripple or turnip treacle ice cream, the buoyant story of Mrs. Pickle's enlightenment is a reminder that they just won't know unless they try it. Ages 5-8. (Sept.)