ACROSS THE STREAM

One can't help recalling Rosie's Walk on first sight of Ginsburg's page-sized, boldly rendered hen, first seen against a stark white background facing a mostly white page on which her three chicks are spiffily aligned. On second glance, the resemblance is inescapable: We read that ""A hen and three chicks [new page] had a bad dream"" and, on the second page, see a fox creeping down from the roof of the henhouse. The rhyming text continues without a mention of the fox: ""They ran and came [new page] to a deep, wide stream."" There (""Cluck, we are in luck"") they see three ducklings and a duck, who are kind enough to carry the hen and chicks on their backs--across the stream and away from the ""bad dream"" (as pictured, the fox), who is left on the other side. In itself, though never as spruce or as clever as Rosie's Walk, it's a successful effort of its poster-simple kind, with clean emphatic pictures in complete accord with the pared-down but solid plot.