Liars and Saints

  "The Big Orange Splot" is the story of Mr. Plumbean, who dreams of owning a pet alligator. One day, a seagull visits and spills orange paint on Plumbean's house. ("No one knew why the gull was carrying paint.") Suddenly freed from the demands of conformity, Plumbean begins to realize his dream. He acquires his alligator. (The details of the acquisition are omitted.) At times, the alligator sits like a cat under Plumbean's hammock. At other times, the alligator "basks"; he gets on his back and stretches his webbed toes toward the sky. As in "Grey Gardens," the central pair in "The Big Orange Splot" becomes more and more fond of eccentricity. Mr. Plumbean plants "baobabs, onions, and frangipani." He constructs a clock tower and paints it with rainbow colors. This book seems to be a spiritual godparent to "Extra Yarn," by Jon Klassen. For me, the highlight is the basking alligator.

  The two bad bears of the title have a friend--Larry--who explains the etiquette of "a visit." He says, "I have brought you a baked treat. We will eat it together and chat about our lives. Then I will go home." Later--amazed at the world's possibilities--the bad bears realize that they themselves can *make* a visit. So they find the home of a group of strangers, the Beachball family. They do not have a gift, so they rip a fruit tree out of the garden and hand it to Mrs. Beachball. They demand a sugary fish treat--and Mr. Beachball produces a donut. On the donut, he has sprinkled the remnants from a tin of sardines. The little Beachball girl calls the cops--and this interlude ends. Oblivious, the bad bears congratulate themselves on a fun evening. "It is nice to have a visit--and it is nice to *make* a visit." Fade to black. I think this is like a modern-day version of a James Marshall story. The focus is on subtext. The little Beachball girl can't...

  Daniel Pinkwater is a gifted writer whose picture-book output includes a series on polar bears. Larry, a kind polar bear, forms a friendship with a human family. On one level, all is well; Larry's friends own a hotel, and the swimming pool has been repurposed as an icy "polar bear zone." When human patrons ask if it's safe to share the pool with Larry, the proprietress shrugs and says, "Probably." (Almost no one finds this reassuring.) On another level, Larry wants more. He wants to explore the world. His human buddy takes him out to a diner; she cloaks him with a pair of sunglasses and a trench coat, and she claims that he is "an uncle from Minneapolis." Larry enjoys himself, then discovers the zoo, where his brother is trapped within an enclosure. Problem solved: The enclosure is, in fact, ineffective. Polar bears remain in their pits only because they *choose* to do so--as a service to humans. Re-teamed with his brother, Larry finds that he ha...