cover image Mickey is Happy: A Disney Book of Feelings

Mickey is Happy: A Disney Book of Feelings

Richard Duerrstein, Walt Disney Productions. Random House Disney, $5.95 (1pp) ISBN 978-1-56282-267-5

The publisher bills this trio of board books as a ``fresh new look'' at ``favorite friends,'' but the text is standard-issue and Duerrstein's style already seems passe. The Disney characters receive new coloration, true, but the shocking pinks, lemon yellows, etc., recall nothing so much as the psychedelic '60s. The multi-image, multi-hued illustrations in the counting book, One Mickey Mouse , set that volume up for unfavorable comparison with Andy Warhol's silkscreen portraits of celebrities. While strong graphics balance the crazy palette of In Out , the compositions of Mickey Is Happy run riot. Each of the Disney characters here is speckled with black ink, an effect reminiscent of the clouds of dust and dirt enveloping Pigpen in Charles Schulz's Peanuts . It looks as if the Magic Kingdom could use a little more abracadabra. Ages 1-3. (Sept.)