Toto's Apple

Who says all happy endings need to look the same? Not Lavoie, who debuts with a crisply narrated story of hard-won (and perhaps short-lived) success. Toto is a pink worm whose red-lined segments make him look like a fashion-forward sock with googly eyes. Those eyes are aimed squarely at a red apple in a tree, but "The apple is up high. Toto is down low." Art and ingenuity to the rescue! Grabbing his paintbrush (With what appendages? Who cares!), Toto turns a stick into a decoy worm, hitches a ride on the bird that swoops down to grab it%E2%80%94and winds up in the wrong tree. Toto's paintbrush makes two more appearances as he attempts to reach the apple, but it isn't until a girl named Didi procures the apple and drops it on the ground that Toto gets his chance. Lavoie's art is as dead simple as his writing, and his gouache paintings reduce the story's elements to their bare essentials. And if "Toto is happy" even after Didi keeps eating the dropped apple, swallowing the worm whole, who are readers to complain? Ages 2%E2%80%935. (Aug.)