PENNY LEE AND HER TV

Clever cartoons with a slapstick edge enliven newcomer McCoy's one-note tale about a child TV addict who's forced to quit her tube habit cold turkey. The TV is Penny Lee's "best friend.... Penny Lee even slept on top of it. And while she snoozed, her dreams would have commercial breaks." Her lonesome pooch, Mr. Barkley, tries to get her attention (parents don't seem to exist); in one cartoon, he rides a motorcycle, Evel Knievel–style, through a flaming hoop atop her TV, to no avail. When the TV abruptly stops working (and Mr. Barkley feigns serious attempts as diagnostician—rubber gloves and all), the canine finds ways to entertain Penny Lee as they walk the TV to a repair shop. Among other diversions, they jump rope with the TV cord, draw sidewalk pictures of fire hydrants and superheroes, and swim in a pond, using the lifeless TV as a diving board. McCoy's caricatures amuse with large heads, bulbous noses and ever-expressive furrowed brows and round eyes. However, the premise of a kid tricked out of her taste for TV may resonate more with parents than with children. Ages 4-7. (Apr.)