HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOLL AND TROLL

Four more episodes ringing variations on familiar themes of friendship strained and reasserted. In the first, Mole and Troll compete to a weary, what-the-dickens draw; the second finds them taking extra-fright--and extra-comfort--together in a thunderstorm; the third gives Troll a chance to tell Mole he likes him as he is; and the fourth is a mixup about birthdays that hinges on Mole's not knowing that this-very-day is his. From the repartee to the attendant antics, it's all, in fact, a little cruder and a little more forced than in the best books of this ilk; and the illustrations are a lot less captivating.