Though this is a successor to last spring's Alex and the Cat, an exceptionally suggestive easy reader, it is wholly a picture book in format and structure--which is rather a pity: picture books with resonance are far more common than easy readers of that stripe, and the relationship between inquisitive dog Alex and the wise, slightly aloof cat lent itself to development in successive episodes. In this case, though, we are in picture-book territory, with more mood and reflection than momentum or action. On an autumn night, both Alex and the cat are restless, so Robbie lets them out--to gaze at an orange moon, and listen to geese ""calling from the dark sky."" Alex throws back his head and howls, then marvels--""I rarely howl."" ""You're remembering,"" the cat tells him. ""Remembering what?"" ""Things,"" says the cat. Shadows move in the mist, and come to a terrifying climax (""Something SCREECHED! . . . Something SCREAMED!""); then Robbie appears, to calm and comfort a shivering Alex, and sit by the now-purring cat. Is Robbie remembering too, Alex wonders: ""But Robbie was only looking at the moon."" The idea of animals responding to ancestral instincts is conveyed with feeling and dignity--and just enough drama and humor in the illustrations to keep the whole from being either outlandish or high-falutin.