"The Watermelon Seed" and "The Great Lollipop Caper" From "The Watermelon Seed" Children often have a baffling relationship with food. One child is terrified of cheese; another will eat nothing but. One 4-year-old's beloved slice of watermelon tastes like soap to his 7-year-old sister. Two new picture books celebrate the love, the dislike and the occasional fear inspired by two of (most) children's favorite foods: watermelon and lollipops. "The Watermelon Seed," by Greg Pizzoli, has a juicy premise posed as a question: "Have you ever swallowed a seed?" The fear of swallowing something you're not supposed to has a rich tradition in children's song and literature (flies, bubblegum) and in real life. Most children at one point or another accidentally down an appleseed (poison!) or a cherry pit ("You'll choke!"). In this book, a curiously small crocodile and lifelong watermelon fan, not surprisingly, eventually swallows a seed. Gulp. He is terrified. It's growing in my guts! Soon vines will come out of my ears! Each imagined scenario is boldly illustrated on the page in a stripped-down palette of watermelon-y shades of pink and rind green. Children will relate to each catastrophic possibility: a stretched-out stomach, skin that turns pink. Pizzoli legitimizes childish anxieties but also slyly exaggerates each worry to highlight the humor. In the end, the absurdity of the situation reaches its zany zenith with an enormous belch. "The Great Lollipop Caper," by Dan Krall, escalates the outrageousness in a willfully ridiculous story about a disgruntled caper and the lollipop who has all the fun. Once again, the color contrasts are drawn in pink and green, with more than a little Nickelodeon-tinged humor. Green with envy is the unloved caper, "a tiny pickled sourpuss, who lives in a jar in your fridge and is never eaten by children." Mr. Caper has never liked Mr. Lollipop, who obviously needs no introduction. Never mind that all the sophisticated grown-ups in the neighborhood admire his "acidic earthiness." Mr. Caper wants to win over the young'uns. He hatches a scheme. In a dark coat, "disguised as a harmless pea," he sneaks into a lollipop factory and pollutes the "lollipop batter" with a sour splash of caper juice. This succeeds in turning the world's children off their taste for lollipops. How can there be a sweet ending for child, lollipop and caper alike? Inevitably, it winds down into a "be happy with who you are" moral of the story. But there are enough twists and turns in Krall's jaunty tale once Mr. Lollipop shows up to lend an empathetic hand. The best thing about the book may be the title, which is likely to fly directly over most children's heads, but they will probably appreciate the animated stick-figured lolly and hiss appropriately at the villain. What this means for the sophisticated fish recipe you planned to introduce at dinner tonight is another question.