I'M TOO SMALL, YOU'RE TOO BIG

In small type, a little boy laments all the things he's ""too small"" to do (""I'm too small to climb a mountain""; ""I'm too small to play in the Big Leagues""); IN LARGE TYPE, on the facing page, he revels in the corresponding things that his father, pictured, is ""TOO BIG"" to do (""YOU'RE TOO BIG TO CLIMB MY JUNGLE GYM""; ""YOU'RE TOO BIG TO PLAY IN THE LITTLE LEAGUES""). And, of course, ""someday I'll be as big as you are. MAYBE EVEN BIGGER."" Finis. Now and again you might think that Barrett is also taking a poke at parents who act like kids--partly because the father looks pretty silly playing house or blindman's bluff--but the pattern is not sufficiently consistent to support that interpretation. So it's just the disadvantages of being small offset, in each case, by an advantage--and capped by the prospect of maybe even out-growing Dad (whose inability ever to be a child again isn't so much as mooted). A perfectly pleasant little lesson--as pictured, too--but static and mechanical.