Q POOTLE 5

In this mild story, flying-saucer pilot Q Pootle 5 "is on his way to a moon party for his friend Z Pootle 6, but something has gone wrong." Nuts and bolts, along with a bottle cap, horseshoe and button, pop off his spaceship and scatter about the vacant white pages. The pea-soup-green alien (he looks like Ziggy, with antennae) makes an emergency landing on an utterly empty patch of ground. He gravely inspects his "rocket boosters," which look suspiciously like soup cans. Curious earthlings, a group of benign animal characters, cannot offer much help: "We're birds," one feathery creature explains. Finally, Q Pootle 5 uses a cat-food tin to repair his craft. A two-stage gatefold pictures him blasting off, then attending the party with his interplanetary friends, who fashion their own ships out of faucets, toilet plungers and spray cans. Butterworth (Percy the Park Keeper series; Jingle Bells) does some sly placement of household gadgets with his watercolor images. However, besides the attention-grabbing title, not much propels this good-natured but listless space caper. Ages 3-7. (July)