HULLABALOO THE ELEPHANT DOG

Hullabaloo was a poodle who worked for a one-ring circus,"" but he just couldn't learn enough tricks to make it as a performer so he becomes an ""elephant dog"" instead--keeping the big fellows company, romping around on the back of Buster, the youngest, and risking his life to save them from an escaped tiger. Both the deliberately casual pencil drawings--like life-studies straight from the sketchbook--and the story, which has all the incidental detail of a pet owner's boasting anecdote (the tiger's blow knocks the dog 35 feet through the air, she needs 14 stitches, etc.), speak from an older picture book sensibility. Yet the appeal to animal lovers is direct and for them Hullabaloo will be an instant sentimental favorite.