Spoofin' Foo Foo: Little Bunny Foo Foo by Cori Doerrfeld

LITTLE BUNNY FOO FOO HOPPED THROUGH THE FOREST.

SCOOPING UP THE FIELD MICE AND BOPPING THEM ON THE HEAD.

Bunny Foo Foo looks innocuous enough, but why is she wandering through the woods with a spiteful spatula and a malevolent oven mitt in hand? And what are all those cute little mice doing with frosted cupcakes?

Why do field mice need cupcakes anyway? Whatever happened to healthy nuts and seeds?

In a lullingly lovely woodland setting, a cute little bunny girl seems to be on a relentless mouse hunt. Isn't that a job for some kitty cat?

It's all a nursery-rhyming mystery.

Little Bunny Foo Foo is bopping mice with her mitt and slapping them with her spatula, snatching those cupcakes and stowing them in her cute little basket. It's a strange scenario to begin with, but when the Good Fairy appears out of the blue to reprimand Foo Foo, she only grows more intense, despite the warnings of the fairy that she's going to become a Monster Bunny if she persists with this mice mugging!

Who's the bad guy here? Well, it seems the field mice started it all by swiping Little Bunny Foo Foo's cute little cupcakes right out of her kitchen, and this vengeful rabbit doesn't want revenge, just JUSTICE--and the repossession of her purloined cupcakes, of course!

Cori Doerrfeld's tongue-in-cheek take on this quasi-nursery song, Little Bunny Foo Foo: The Real Story(Dial, 2012) is certainly the alternative version, and Foo Foo definitely comes off as a not-so-sweet Easter Bunny. Despite the pastel palette of a super sugary preschool read, this bunny tale is really for the more sophisticated primary grade reader who may rejoice at a tart tale in which a supercilious fairy and a bunch of larcenous mice get their, um, just desserts!



Proffer this one along with a more faithful rendition of this traditional nursery song in Paul Brett Johnson's Little Bunny Foo Foo: Told And Sung By The Good Fairy, or Michael Rosen's more conventionally sympathetic version, Little Rabbit Foo Foo, in which the felonious mice become goblins, for a trio of rabbity renderings of this rather quirky fractured fairy tale.

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Detective Blue by Steve Metzger

MY NAME IS BLUE--DETECTIVE BLUE.

YOU MIGHT KNOW ME AS LITTLE BOY BLUE.

AT ONE TIME I BLEW A HORN AND LOOKED AFTER COWS AND SHEEP.

THAT'S IN THE PAST.

Little Boy Blue is now Gumshoe Blue, a hard-boiled sleuth. It's another day in the city, and Detective Blue is already pounding the pavement on what may be an abduction case--the Dish has purportedly run away with Spoon. And no sooner has the collar been put on Dish when Blue is off on the trail of a perp on a stolen identity case, Mary's Lamb, a repeat offender, whom Detective Blue apprehends, disguised in toboggan cap and a student's misappropriated backpack, trying to sneak in--yet again--into the local grade school

"YOU CAN'T PULL THE WOOL OVER MY EYES," SAYS BLUE.

It's all in the daily grind for our gumshoe, until Jack Sprat raises a hue and cry!

"MISS MUFFET IS MISSING!"

"DON'T WORRY. DETECTIVE BLUE IS ON THE CASE," BLUE MUMBLES LACONICALLY.

Clues are few at the scene of the crime. Miss Muffett's usual haunts among the tuffets reveals a dropped bowl of curds and whey, which Blue examines ("YUCK"), and a spiderweb. Pretty skimpy physical evidence! Blue begins to interrogate the eyewitnesses at the scene.

"WE DIDN'T SEE A THING!" SAY THE THREE BLIND MICE.

Blue questions Humpty Dumpty, who does have a good vantage point on the scene from his wall. Dumty suggests that Miss Muffett often visits Jack Horner's Pie Shop down the way, but when Blue appreciatively slaps Dumpty on the back for his tip, he leaves his tipster all cracked up.

Horner hasn't seen the missing lass, but pudding-seller Georgie Porgie suggests he question King Cole down at the castle, where Blue picks up a hot clue from Spider.

"SHE WAS TIRED OF CURDS AND WHEY. I TOLD HER WHERE SHE COULD GET SOME DELICIOUS PORRIDGE!"

Blue knows right where to find plenty of porridge and arrives at the scene of an in-progress home invasion just in time to rescue the would-be porridge sampler Miss Muffet from some "beary" angry members of the family Ursidae, in Steve Metzger's newest, Detective Blue (Orchard Books, 2011). Award-winning artist Tedd Arnold's googly-eyed characters are just right for this tongue-in-cheek detective tale, and his cleverly-inserted background nursery rhyme spoofs will crack up readers, who can also use Metzger's appended "index" to sleuth out the allusions which humorously spice up the story throughout. Readers who are well grounded in their nursery rhymes and nursery tales will find this book a treasure trove of allusionary fun and grownups who are lucky enough to read this one aloud will "get" the hard-boiled humor even more.

Sass and Spice: The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Ernst

A full year had passed since the lonely old woman and the lonely old man had lost the Gingerbread Boy.

"Let's bake again!" said the old man one morning.

Lisa Campbell Ernst can be counted upon to fill her fractured fairy tales with peppery heroines long on spice and short on sugar, and her picture book, The Gingerbread Girl is no exception.

True to family form, the Gingerbread Girl hops out of the oven and right through the door, just like her unfortunate dimwitted brother, but this girl is a smart cookie who is capable of learning from vicarious experience. Granted, her rhyme scheme is familiar, and her followers feature some of the usual hungry characters, all of whom want to be her "special" friend. In no time she has outrun the old couple, some farmers, a painter, a piggy, a cow, a dog, and some school kids with a serious case of the munchies, but this heroine is fast on her feet and faster with a rhyme:

I can outrun this artist
Like I outran the pig.
I am one smart cookie,
Despite this wild wig.

But there is only so much a girl can do to alter the plot of these tales. Soon she pulls up beside a river, and guess who is willing and eager to take her across. Yep, it's the same old fox, beguiled by her spicy smell and her curly red licorice-whip coiffure. "Hel-lo, my pretty! I was a friend of your brother's. It looks like trouble runs in your family!" he says.

Despite his promises to ferry her across the river safely, however, the old red fox is true to his nature. But in midstream when this cool cookie finds herself too near the business end of the wily fox, she puts her hairstyle to its best use yet--twisting the stretchy licorice whips around Fox's greedy snout and tying his jaws too tight to whimper. Then this practical girl leads her large following--including the still snack-driven kids--back to the bake shop where the happy little old woman and little old man have a very profitable bake sale, thanks to their prodigal daughter, who sings proudly for the crowd:

We'll run and we'll run
With a leap and a twirl.
I out-foxed the fox!
I'm the Gingerbread Girl!