BEAT THE DRUM: Independence Day Has Come

Fireworks figure in eleven of the twenty-one short poems in Hopkins' latest holiday collection; parades, flags, and picnics follow as favorite topics, and with very few exceptions the conventional symbols of patriotic festivity are merely trotted by to elicit conditioned hurrahs. Exclamation points, abound, and through all the din it's clear that no one is listening to the wistful voice, wedged insensitively between flag-wavers (""Present for America"" by one J. P. Luby and the anonymous ""Fourth of July Parade""), of Clifton's Everett Anderson who "". . . thinks he'll make/America a birthday cake/only the sugar is almost gone/and payday's not till later on."" De Paola's kids beat their drums and wave their arms on pages that start out all red or blue on white, then--in a poor match for the fireworks' climactic explosions--switch to white print and pictures on red or blue ground. Drummedup enthusiasm, effective in small bits if at all.