SKATES!

Keats' two dogs on roller skates, dressed in trousers, scarves and caps, are shaped very much like boys, the gestures they make with their "arms" underline the resemblance, and at the end of their calamitous experiment they even say a few words: "'I've had it!' 'Yeah! Who wants to skate anyway?'" The humor though derives from their evident unsteadiness in an upright position, as they slip and tumble through the mobile, popsicle-colored pages with a long fringed purple scarf billowing in their wake. It ends on a note of typical Keatsian harmony, with the pair treating a quartet of dressed-up kittens to a doggy-back roller skate ride, and as long as you don't expect the sustaining warmth and personality of the Peter books (and can overlook the kittens' wide-eyed cuteness) it's a fetching enough free-wheeling diversion.