The King Who Rained (by Fred Gwynne)

Each two-page spread pokes gentle fun at an idiom, homonym, or word use that runs counter to its literal meaning. Thus we have a reference to a king who rained, a (table) fork in the road, and references to holding up a bridal (locomotive) train, plus a literal frog in the throat, as well as bear feet and foot prince, all turned on their merry heads by Gwynne's direct, comical artwork.

Fred Gwynne hits on some new material here with tricks of pronunciation -- "foot prince in the snow" -- but otherwise he travels over the old terrain of idioms and homonyms that was better mined by Remy Charlip in Arm and Arm: A Collection of Connections, Endless Tales, Reiterations, and Other Echoalia. While repetition can give a book a warm sense of familiarity or a pleasing lilt, or can invite reader participation, here Gwynne's failure to alter his delivery makes the book feel like an endless knock-knock joke: It stifles the text, denies it oxygen.

The artwork, which looks like it was capably knocked off with a set of Magic Markers and some fast handwork, has an easy comfort to it. The illustrations have a 5-year-old's vividness to them.