Review of The Terrible Plop

The tale of Henny Penny, who sets off a panic by shouting that the sky is falling, ends -- classically -- in Lucy Cousins' book with the fox eating the hysterical animals. That's one way to teach the lesson of not freaking out. "The Terrible Plop" by Ursula Dubosarsky, pictures by Andrew Joyner (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $15.95, ages 3-6) takes a more contemporary approach and marries a terrific story with a principle of early-childhood education: Children need to learn ways to calm themselves down. In rhymes worthy of Dr. Seuss, the smallest rabbit discovers the source of the Terrible Plop -- an apple falling in the lake -- and concludes: "All this running / Should really stop . . . / Who's afraid / Of a silly old PLOP?"