relutsky uncorks his latest collection of light verse, a divinely wretched celebration of subversity. Every detail of Awful Ogre"s day offers possibility for gross-outs, from sunup (\"I flick aside the lizard/ Clinging grimly to my chin,/ And now I feel I"m ready/ For my morning to begin\") to sundown (a sly swat at Goodnight Moon as Awful Ogre drifts off to sleep with \"Good night to furtive spiders/ That lurk in murky wells./ Good night to loathsome vermin/ With nauseating smells\"). Whether he"s writing a love letter to an ogress (\"I long for the sight/ Of your craggy gray face,/ The might of your bone-breaking,/ Painful embrace\") or puttering in the garden (\"I"m growing carnivorous roses/ And oceans of overblown mold\"), Awful Ogre proves an ideal agent for Prelutsky"s oversize humor. Switching gears from the lushness of his Caldecott-winning Rapunzel, repeat collaborator Zelinsky presents Awful Ogre as a grotesque but goofy innocent, sillier than he is sinister. Awful may have only one eye and green hair, and a skunk might indeed curl up in his left nostril, yet he has a childlike sweetness as he dances (shown in a series of a dozen panels) or snuggles up in bed with his cactus. A virtuoso performance by two master funny-bone-ticklers. Ages 6-up.