CLIPPER

It's a disarming notion: lighthouse-keeper Clipper, a dog, is lonesome because no boats stop, the gulls don't answer his greeting (""'Too busy flying,' thinks Clipper""), and neither do the fish (""'Too busy swimming,' thinks Clipper""). And the pictures are becomingly simple and cozy. But the text soon veers toward the banal, the too-explicit (""Nobody ever has the time to talk or play,"" Clipper is given--unnecessarily--to think); and the resolution is totally ersatz: a funny little green sea-creature, yclept Seaweed, turns up one night in a storm and settles in. That touch-true premise deserves a wrap-up that's not just tacked on.