It's the king's birthday, and all of the animals' special treats are going missing! Who is the thief, and where's the beef?
Tarantula placed an "extra tender piece of beef" atop King Lion's birthday cake. He leaves to find his knife and when he returns, "the tender piece of beef is gone!" Linda Faas pictures an eight-legged chef dwarfed by his toque. First, Tarantula checks Gorilla's mouth: "You smell like bananas," Tarantula observes. Gorilla is making a banana soup for the monarch's big day. Faas creates a balanced composition in which the gorilla swirls across the right-hand side of the spread, with Tarantula picking up on the primate's white teeth, wide eyes and rimmed nostrils, and a growing mound of banana peels rises from the left-hand side.
"Gorilla did not take the meat. Who is the beef thief?" the refrain repeats, as Tarantula checks with Snake, the herbivore Giraffe, Elephant, Crocodile and others. Faas makes the most of each double-page spread, whether Snake dangles from a vine, supporting a tray of eggs with his tail, Giraffe extending a long neck or Crocodile coiling around the perimeter of the pages.
When everyone brings their offerings to the birthday banquet, the culprit becomes clear in a satisfyingly humorous ending. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness