THE BATTLE OF SIR COB AND SIR FILBERT

The peace message reduced to essentials: each envying the other his castle, two knights do battle till there are ``only cows where their castles had been,'' then decide to settle down as friends. The war is more cartoonish than gruesome—the logic of the idea is what counts here; but the illustrations, in sturdy black line and outspoken colors, are handsomely designed and, in their creatively selected details, more eloquent than the text. An acceptable additional title on a perennially knotty theme. (Picture book. 4-8)