cover image A. Nonny Mouse Writes Again!

A. Nonny Mouse Writes Again!

Jack Prelutsky. Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, $13 (1pp) ISBN 978-0-679-83715-2

Fans of Poems of A. Nonny Mouse will rejoice in this effervescent sequel containing more than 50 wittily illustrated short verses. In an introductory letter, Ms. Mouse acknowledges that since the successful publication of her first volume, she's ``been able to afford the occasional wedge of imported cheese'' and ``put away something for her old age.'' Along with traditional offerings, tongue twisters, limericks and four unlabeled poems by Prelutsky--identified as the editor of Ms. Mouse's scribblings--the book includes the familiar poem about infamous ``Ooey Gooey,'' the worm who ends up squashed on a railroad track, and a subversive rendition of ``Row, Row, Row Your Boat'' that concludes with ``Throw your teacher overboard / And listen to her scream.'' Priceman's watercolors, like those she executed in Prelutsky's For Laughing Out Loud , are frolicsome and frisky, mischievously expressive. Bird-beaked sunflowers fly through clouds, clothes are draped on a moose's antlers, and the green ``three-toed tree toad'' spurns a beribboned two-toed tree-toad shown bearing a valentine and flowers. Ms. Mouse, on the jacket depicted riding a cat with cowlike markings over a crescent moon, can be located in similarly larky poses at each turn of the page. Ages 4-10. (Aug.)