Yellow Yellow

Sometimes I suspect the gradual reprinting of Mark Alan Stamaty's books from the '70s and '80s has been undertaken with me in mind. Certainly Phinney Books must be among the nation's top sellers of his fabulous 1973 picture book, Who Needs Donuts?, and I recently praised the reissue of his '80s comics for grownups, MacDoodle Street. And now we're lucky to have his first book, Yellow Yellow, a picture-book collaboration with his friend Frank Asch, back too. Any Stamaty fan will immediately recognize his dense, delirious style, in support of a simple tale of a boy who finds a yellow hat that isn't his. If I call it the Mean Streets to the Taxi Driver of Who Needs Donuts?, will that give the wrong impression that these are anything but sweet, good-hearted stories? (Ages 2 and up)