THE ARMADILLO FROM AMARILLO

With thanks, in her dedication, to Dr. Seuss, Cherry pens a fanciful verse account of an armadillo's journey through Texas and into outer space. Bearing a hobo's bandanna-wrapped pack and sending frequent postcards (inset in the full-bleed art) to his cousin Brillo at the Philadelphia Zoo, ``Sasparillo'' leaves a gorgeous field of bluebonnets and travels to San Antonio, explores cross-country to Austin, then, with the help of a friendly eagle, flies over Amarillo and the plains and—hooking up with a rocket that's just been launched from Cape Canaveral- -out into space for a very special view before returning home. Cherry's limping doggerel is a far cry from Seuss's, but her meticulously detailed art is enchanting; she imbues the vistas the little traveler enjoys with a contagious enthusiasm for their beauty and variety and the many kinds of life inhabiting them. A note distinguishes the carefully researched facts in the art from the fiction concerning the appealing animal observer. (Picture book. 5-9)