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 to Dragnet (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 us Piggie Pie and Zoom Broom, backed up on this assignment by the spirited illustrations of Richard Egielski. (Ages 4 to 8) --Paul Hughes