Daisy Dare

Two mice with strong personalities star in these cozy volumes. Daisy, a dare-devil, amazes her more timid mouse friends with all kinds of stunts. Daisy is brave enough to walk a wall, eat a worm and stick out her tongue at a neighbor, but when she's goaded into stealing a bell off a sleeping cat's collar, her courage momentarily falters. The heroine of the other volume, Mary, feels particularly obstinate one day and insists on doing everything backward (``She went for a walk on her hands. She read a book upside down''). Jeram (illustrator of Guess How Much I Love You) creates tension through a tidily strung series of episodes, all of them familiar to children, then resolves each protagonist's dilemma cleanly and comfortingly. Cheerful watercolor vignettes and full-page illustrations of mice dressed for playtime stress the camaraderie among the characters and the verve of the two leads. Ages 2-up. (Sept.)