Adam Pig's Everything Fun Book

The good-natured, incessantly smiling Adam Pig is the focal point of this oversized volume, an amiable if somewhat insipid hodgepodge of vignettes, illustrated word lists and how-to projects. Preschoolers can follow this busy piglet on outings to the grocery store, where he fills his mother's cart with items not on her shopping list; to the park, where he misplaces his scarf; and to the doctor's office, where he learns he has chicken pox. Young provides cursory instructions for a handful of such familiar activities as building a car from a cardboard box, creating prints from cut sponges and potatoes, and making puppets out of socks. Labeled pictures of such items as Adam's favorite toys and foods will hold most appeal to those on the younger end of the targeted age span. The book's greatest asset is Young's perky, whimsically cluttered art, which ably spells out the action for pre-readers. However, its format and subject matter unavoidably call to mind the oeuvre of Richard Scarry, but lack the understated, wry humor and visual shenanigans of that author's works. Ages 2-5. (Mar.)