Hamburger Heaven

March 1, 1999
In rhyming couplets and airy watercolor vignettes, Yee (The Officer's Ball) chronicles Pinky Pig's successful ploy to raise some extra cash. If business doesn't pick up at Hamburger Heaven, where Pinky works on Fridays after school, she will lose her job--and will never be able to replace her clarinet (which, the dedication page reveals, was accidentally flattened by an elephant). So the resourceful Pinky puts her business acumen to work and surveys members of the community: "Pinky asks shoppers she happens to meet: `What kind of burgers do you like to eat?' " Based on their replies, she designs a new menu, papers the neighborhood with copies and watches with pride as a crowd swells outside Hamburger Heaven to sample the new line of specialty burgers: "Porcupine's burger is served on pine needles./ Possum's order comes crawling with beetles." A grateful chef gives Pinky a raise and the new clarinet is hers. Yee's unprepossessing business primer boosts children's entrepreneurial instincts and makes the work of marketing look like great fun. At the same time, the visual slapstick of the artwork and the gleeful yuckiness of the burger recipes prove that Yee, like his pink protagonist, is no neophyte when it comes to giving his audiences what they demand. Ages 4-8.