cover image Hide-And-Seek Puppies

Hide-And-Seek Puppies

Stewart Cowley. Reader's Digest Young Families, $6.99 (20pp) ISBN 978-0-89577-455-2

These Magic Window board books are aptly named. There's nothing particularly enchanting about the sugary rhyming texts, all counting stories, but the book design is uncommonly good. A solid border on every page surrounds a square picture; half the pictures are painted on uncolored acetate set into a cutout ``window'' and the other half have had their backgrounds cut out altogether, silhouetting the horizons against empty space. When the book is closed, every square aligns to suggest a three-dimensional scene; each turn of the page changes the scene on both recto and verso sides. Although the author and illustrators' sweet portrayal of a humanized animal kingdom depends more on cliche than on fancy, the novel production techniques give the series the feel of classic Viewmaster tableaux. Ages 2-5. (Nov.)