DOG AND CAT MAKE A SPLASH

In this Easy-to-Read entry, Dog and Cat (Dog and Cat Shake a Leg, 1996, etc.) know how to have fun. They know how to make friends. They know how to splash, find good stuff at a tag sale, fix up a birthday boat, balance a bone on a nose, and pull a carrot out of a hat at their very own magic show. These amiable characters, whose individual personalities are somewhat indistinguishable, do nothing uproarious—rather, they revel in the ordinary joys of friendship, moving through four brief episodes that function more as vignettes than adventures. Three of the stories feature swimming, birthdays, and magic shows, familiar topics for this audience, but without any new spin. A fourth, ``The Tag Sale,'' shines: Only in the potential loss of Dog's books, chair, or guitar that he's given to a yard sale does he recognize their true value. Spohn's trademark simplicity is evident in the contained pen-and-ink drawings, suitable for providing picture clues for beginning readers, but lacking the zing of James Marshall's Fox books, or even of the previous book about Dog and Cat. (Fiction. 5-8)