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9780810957008

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This book is a bizarre mixture of the much-loved Babar illustrations and characters with complex modern moralizing and magic, combining to make a not altogether convincing story. Barbar's son Alexander enjoys the magic of the good Succotash bird, which can make him swing around in the night air when he can't sleep, but fails to notice that a second Succotash bird employs bad magic, and is made frighteningly large and then smaller than a daisy. The Succotash of the title refers to a dish of lima beans mixed up with corn, or as the moral goes, good mixed up with bad - like life. The point is that children should not be easily taken in, but should realize that some bad people look, on the outside, like good people. Not only is this too subtle a message for the 3 to 5 year-old age group, but there is nothing, apart from the birds colours, which could have helped Alexander distinguish between them, so there isn't really any helpful message to children. On the positive side, it is a pleasure to see the familiar Babar illustrations and characters again. But the added ingredients of careless grammar, heavy moralizing and the occasional illogical scene make this a poor relation of the original Babar books. (Kirkus UK)

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