KIPPER'S BIRTHDAY

Last seen in an imaginative counting book (Kipper's Toybox, 1992), the appealingly flop-eared little dog is back with a satisfying variation on the old birthday-party-confusion theme. Kipper's busy with preparations for his own party, with uncertainties that mostly turn out fine—the cake that's flat going into the oven, for example, slowly becomes ``a sort of heap, but it smelled good.'' But the party invitations, delivered the day after they're written because Kipper is tired from his labors, refer to ``tomoro.'' Result: a mystified pup comforts himself with cake and then gets a sort of unintentional surprise party the day after his birthday. Just right for small people intrigued by the concepts of ``yesterday'' and ``tomorrow''; illustrated in Inkpen's clean, affectionately comical style. (Picture book. 3-7)