Never Ride Your Elephant

Talk about outdoing Mary and her little lamb. In the same vein as Johnson and Carter's Never Babysit the Hippopotamuses!, this zany title treats pet elephants as perfectly ordinary. A list of elephantine at-school behaviors is accompanied by images of a tusker wreaking classroom havoc (``He will trumpet quite loudly while looking for you. This could scare some of the children''). Students should ``never open a bag of peanuts, even across the room from him,'' but they might let the elephant participate in spelling bees because ``an elephant never forgets!'' Johnson pursues his idea perhaps too exhaustively; he doesn't leave much room for readers to imagine their own elephant-instigated disasters. Carter (Summer Legs) creates a genial watercolor elephant whose trunk and limbs look as malleable as wet gray clay; as it strolls along, wobbly, distorted settings suggest its thudding footsteps. Gigglesome extras include the student pachyderm's pink polka-dot trousers, the skewed views of the frequently distressed teacher and assorted classroom chaos. Ages 4-7. (Sept.)