SPOT'S FIRST WALK

Spot's First Walk makes a suitable first book, with its extra-large pre-primer type, uncomplicated but not empty pictures, and very basic easy-to-follow ""story"" which shows Spot leaving his mother behind and then investigating his immediate surroundings. The built-in novelty consists of a series of flaps--representing the toolshed door, garden gate, chicken-coop screen, etc.--which readers, just like Spot, will lift to see what's inside or behind. Spot's next-to-last discovery, inevitably but appropriately, is a bone, which he then trots home. The flaps here are more than a gimmick, they're an integral part of the concept.