Mr. Chips!

It's good-bye, Mr. Chips and hello, Mr. Chips in this wishful and overfamiliar story of a lost-and-found hound. According to his owner, Ellie, Mr. Chips often visits the local barbershop, newspaper office and elementary school. But one day the Airedale doesn't return from his rounds, and shortly afterward his human family must move ""153 miles"" to a new town. True to the Incredible Journey/Lassie tradition, Mr. Chips finds his way home after several months, only he has not been nobly enduring dire hardships. Kvasnosky (One, Two, Three, Play with Me) drops hints as to his whereabouts: a pink ""Dill Family Circus"" poster hangs on a telephone pole upon his disappearance and reappearance, and a lady reports seeing an Airedale perform at the circus (""We were sure it couldn't be Mr. Chips. He didn't know any tricks. He couldn't even remember to stay off the couch""). Yet Mr. Chips returns wearing a name tag reading ""Pickle,"" and spontaneously dances on his hind legs. The illustrations, drawn in sputtery black lines and painted in opaque hues of sky blue, cool sea green, pale yellow and warm red, portray the narrator as a sad solitary figure but a joyful companion to her pet. The bold, original compositions almost conceal the tale's sentimental aspects, but the scales are tipped by the frequently coy quality of the prose. Ages 3-7. (Aug.)