D.C. HOPPER: The First Starbunny

A new author and a new publisher, both experienced in the TV industry, bring care and expertise to presenting a predictable story. Old Captain Bunny tells the assembled young on a spaceship about ""Dr. Hopper,"" a scientist who built a carrot-shaped craft, rocketed off, and thus solved his era's biggest problem by discovering that smog was inhibiting the growth of carrots on his planet. Raichert's narrative, enlivened with wordplay concerning bunnies, moves with practiced skill; his pen and color pencil illustrations are executed with a cartoonist's panache that recalls Bill Peet (also a product of Disney) and packed with details that are often amusingly playful and sometimes cleverly satirical, but have little relation to real science--despite the complicated-looking diagram of Hopper's rocket (whose ""carroteristics"" include a ""hare conditioner""). Printed at the elite Stinehour Press, the book makes an attractive package; too bad the storyline didn't have a little more substance. Still, a book that will satisfy many young sf fans.