DON'T TEASE THE GUPPIES

``I'll read the signs,'' Jon assures his little brother as the two enter the aquarium, but Tim isn't deterred: he likes to ``read'' them first. Sometimes Tim's version suits him better than the real one (the sign says ``Go Around,'' he opines of one reading ``Please Wait in Line''); sometimes it suggests that he has absorbed an earlier message (``It says Don't Feed That Fat Turtle. His Shell Will Bust''). New readers will enjoy the brothers' amiable bickering as much as they do reading the signs for themselves in Hafner's cheerful, cartoon-style art. A touch of suspense is added when Tim gets caught in a broom closet marked ``Keep Out'' (he thinks the sign says ``Come In'') and, in the dark, imagines fearfully what it contains (``Like dead fish....And a really dead porcupine. It sure does smell''). After his brother rescues him, the little boy finally reads one sign correctly: ``Exit.'' A likable story, sure to find a variety of uses. (Picture book. 4-8)