Do You See a Mouse?

""What a scandal! What a calamity!"" Someone has spotted a mouse in the ultra-chic Park Snoot Hotel. Everyone else says it ain't so. Says Simon the doorman, ""Do you see a mouse? I do not see a mouse""-a refrain echoed by other hotel employees and guests. Delighted youngsters, however, will squeal ""Yes!"" as they spy the mouse on the subsequent pages of this predictable yet engaging tale by the creator of the Lyle Crocodile books. The mouse can be seen riding atop a pile of luggage on the bellman's cart, nibbling a piece of cheese in the kitchen, peeking out from a napkin on a waiter's tray, helping the conductor direct the hotel orchestra, etc. Though the hotel owner, too, denies the existence of the rodent, he decides to put everyone's mind at ease and hires the world's foremost mouse-catchers to ""look into this beastly matter."" In lively slapstick style, Waber shows the debonair mouse looking on as the identically mustachioed, bowler-hatted Hyde and Snide search high and low, finally certifying (and double certifying) that there is no mouse in the hotel. Even more than his lighthearted text, Waber's droll cartoon art delivers the humor here. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)