THREE KIND MICE

These mice are busy, busy, busy. They are baking a cake, generating enough energy to power an electric station. ``Stir fast, stir faster! Batter spatters,'' then ``the mice mix icing. And they skate. They swirl. They glide. The mice collide.'' All this activity takes place on pages on the right, while opposite them a golden-brown cat snoozes, wakes, gets up, stretches, goes to investigate. The mice shoo him off, light candles, compose an invitation for their feline pal—they are kind mice, indeed. Sathre (Mouse Chase, 1995, etc.) doesn't overdo her playful rhymes, but keeps them simple and bouncy: ``A candle falls. One mouse trips. All three mice begin to slip—right off the edge.'' Wilson's colored-pencil illustrations are engaging and busy, but never frantic or without purpose, and he artfully captures the cat's poses. One of the most successful aspects of the book is the luxuriant use of space; the layout employs great fields of white that give the gleeful story room to breathe. (Picture book. 4-8)