PIPPA POPS OUT!

Fluffy Pippa Mouse (1973) returns in four tiny stories designed to reflect small children's concerns. In ""The Moony Night,"" Pippa demonstrates that she is old enough and big enough and smart enough to take care of herself in the shadowy. dark, and in ""The Nothing Mouse"" her kind deed for a grateful beetle helps her realize that she's not a nothing but is good at lots of things. Realistically, though, it takes a ""helping friend"" (squirrel) to save her from a fox when her ""hang glider"" leaf gets hung up. The last story is both less to the point and more obviously engineered, with a wand-waving Pippa informing her friends of the ""magical"" appearance of a new baby brother. Despite the title and the mass-market packaging, this is not a pop-up but, on the contrary, two-dimensional and tame. Nevertheless, where Pippa has made friends, this does enough gentle boosting to keep them.