Twelve Snails to One Lizard: A Tale of Mischief and Measurement
Kindergarten-Grade 2.  While youngsters will snicker at the goofy green iguanas, the multitudinous pink snails with their curly purple shells, Milo Beaver, Bubba Bullfrog, and Betty Jane Boa, they'll remain clueless to the process of measurement. Measuring is supposed to eliminate the approximation of an eyeball guesstimate, but the concept is garbled here. In Hightower's incremental world, an inch equals one snail. So, by extension, there are 36 snail-lengths corresponding to the measurement Milo needs to gnaw the three-foot-long log needed to patch his dam. At least that's intellectual (and lazy) Bubba Bullfrog's solution to dim bulb Milo's dilemma. The "solution" gets mathematically?and logistically?less complicated as longer animals become the larger units corresponding to a foot and a yard. But, regardless of the number of creatures required, the measuring tools all have their shortcomings as they wander off, act silly, threaten, or otherwise prove unwilling to line up and be counted. Ultimately, the appropriate lengths don't matter anyway since the joke's on Milo?and readers?when Bubba goes home and retrieves his yardstick to prove that Betty Jane is exactly one yard long. Like Hightower's text, Novak's simple and colorful acrylics are, unfortunately, uninspired.?John Sigwald, Unger Memorial Library, Plainview, TXCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.