From the Heart

Although it looks like a small-format picture book for children, this coy and derivative collection of ``light-hearted verse'' is intended for young adults. Each cliche-ridden verse is faced by a slick commercial painting thick with heavy humor: the milk-white muzzle of a cat and pink snout of a pig are heart-shaped; the poet's ``mind's eye'' floats in a blue sky, where the bodies of two dragonflies form a segmented heart (dragonflies, we're told, ``mate on the wing!'' and then, ``when secure in their embrace, / Procreation's taking place''). Even when the tongue-in-cheek humor is obvious--``Say that you will be my mate'' says the lion who cannot hide his ``main love''--this gift book unabashedly apes the puns found in penny valentines. Ages 12-up. (Jan.)