Tea Rex
Some kids like tea parties, others like dinosaurs, and never the twain shall meet—until now? Idle cleverly constructs her picture book as a Miss Manners–style primer on how to throw a delightfully proper tea party, and the prose’s stiff upper lip never falters no matter the monster-sized faux pas occurring within the illustrations. After greeting a guest at the door, “Lead him through to the parlor.” (Illustration: siblings straining to pull a giant green dinosaur through a human-sized door.) Next: “Offer him a comfortable chair.” (Illustration: a dainty pink chair nearly crushed beneath a behemoth rear end.) And on it goes with the dino wreaking havoc upon each highly civilized instance of small talk or cake serving. The cuddly yet giddily preposterous pencil art has the still-life absurdity of Chris Van Allsburg, with characters always frozen in the throes of some larger-than-life struggle against their well-meaning but deadpan dinosaur friend. A fine example of how words and pictures can lock horns to charming effect. Grades K-2. --Daniel Kraus