The Pup Grew Up!

Pevear and Radunsky deliver this story, first published in the U.S.S.R. in 1926, into the hands of American audiences in this offbeat translation. A lady going on a train trip registers her belongings with the conductor: ``The pan, the divan, the basin, the box with three locks, the valise and a tiny Pekingese.'' But during the journey a Great Dane is substituted for her Pekingese, and the way in which the train personnel explain that to her is priceless. Readers will enjoy the answer, which comes out of the most childlike of rationales. Radunsky's art is sharply daringthere are no backgrounds for his occasional buildings or the several kooky people; all stand alone in vast, stark-white spacestwo-dimensional objects of precisely detailed, elongated shapes. Ages 4-7. (Mar.)