The Web Files
"6:32 a.m. This is the farm. My partner, Bill, and I were  working the barnyard shift. It was peaceful. Quiet. Then we got the  call."Much of this fowl-filled homage toDragnet(DUM DE DUM DUM!) will be lost  on kids--and a few grownups, for that matter. But that doesn't make this  straight-faced send-up of that famous crime-partner show--and a dozen-odd fairy  tales thrown in for good measure--any less funny."So you're saying you were robbed, is that right, ma'am? What exactly is missing  from the nest, ma'am? Eggs, ma'am? Chicks, ma'am?" But it turns out that it's  peppers that have gone missing--a peck of "perfect purple, almost-pickled  peppers." But nobody was talking: "We had Horner in the corner and were trying  to make Little Boy Blue quack." Then our intrepid pair of web-footed  investigators gets a break in the case when a tub of "tartest tasty tomahtoes"  turns up missing. DUM DE DUM DUM!It's just more wit from the wonderful Margie Palatini, who brought usPiggie PieandZoom Broom, backed up on this  assignment by the spirited illustrations of Richard Egielski. (Ages 4 to 8)--Paul Hughes