SPENCER AND HIS FRIENDS

Spencer was the sort of a horse that was always referred to as ""Spencer's nice, but he's not much of a house."" and Spencer and His Friends has its nice aspects, but it's not much of a book. The friends include Gunther, a plow horse, Simon, a Siamese cat, Roland, a raccoon, and Ferret, a ferret. There is also Mr. and Mrs. White and their son with whom all the animals communicate. There is a good sense of comic timing to the dialogue and occasional amusing lines. On the whole, however, the animals' slapstick entanglements with normal human activities seem inconsequential and tedious and sometimes irrelevant to the interests of children. The spavined whimsy may leave the audience yawning instead of whinnying.