PRAIRIE DOGS IN PRAIRIE DOG TOWN

The friendly communal ways of the endangered prairie dog help to make Eberle's latest year-in-the-life story a moderately engaging report. Focusing on a mother who starts out with two year-old young ones and has two more litters by the end, she shows us how the small animals work together to build their mounds, how they trap a rattlesnake in an underground burrow and warn each other of danger from owls, hawks and the occasional coyote, how father and mother maintain separate neighboring residences with the whole family freely visiting back and forth -- and of course how the species has been reduced in number by the government-sponsored poison campaign until now few survive outside of protected parks. Eberle never does point out that her subject is a rodent and not some kind of canine, but -- if the pleasant earth-toned cover is any indication -- John Hamberger's illustrations will no doubt provide identification enough.