Rodgers and Hammerstein's the Surrey with the Fringe on Top

Warhola follows Surrey with the Fringe on Top with this bathetic picture-book adaptation of the memorable song from The Sound of Music . In the opening scene, seven animal friends scamper across a field toward an outsize singing chicken, who uses a beribboned parasol to defend herself from the threat of ``raindrops.'' The fulsome menagerie, which includes a pig, a rabbit, a bear and a turtle, among other zoological types, careens from one high-spirited scene to another, across pages crammed with ``bright copper kettles,'' ``crisp apple strudel'' and all the other ``favorite things'' highlighted in the song. Warhola's workmanlike watercolors don't stint on the sentiment: to illustrate the ``silver white winters that melt into spring,'' for example, he catapults the grinning animals into the sky, positioning them in front of--what else?--a pastel rainbow. Endpapers carry the score. Ages 3-6. (Sept.)