The color of her panties Book

This is another of Anthony's delightful, witty romps in the fantasy land of Xanth, whose physical geography resembles that of his adopted state of Florida, but whose flora, fauna and human (and semi-human) geography springs wholly from his own zany imagination --assisted by a flair for puns and copious borrowings from classical and world folklore and legend, all with a humorous spin. (See my previous reviews of titles in this series.) Over the years, my wife and I have accumulated various volumes of this series by buying them at our local flea market, so we haven't always purchased and read them with an eye to following the order of the books systematically. Question Quest, the preceding volume which we don't have and skipped, focuses on the life of Good Magician Humfrey; it explains (so our daughter reports :-)) the many bizarre details of his domestic situation,some of which this volume references in passing. (So now, of course, we need to read the preceding book as soon as circumstances permit!)

Despite the title and above description, this book isn't really risque'; Mela Merwoman's panties are often glimpsed only because she's innocently wearing a Freudian slip, an undergarment that often manages to embarrass its wearer. Xanthian characters are actually quite chaste, and the sight of female panties is about as frowned on as it would have been in Victorian England. Also, human babies (and those of most other human-like species) in Xanth actually are delivered by the storks --but the adult behavior for stork-summoning is a secret closely guarded from minors by the Adult Conspiracy. :-) It won't constitute a spoiler for Xanth fans to hear that Anthony wraps up everyone's quests here in his own inimitable fashion.