BEAUTY AND THE BEASTLY CHILDREN

Despite its perky informality (``Most folks know the story...about Beauty taking old bristle-face in her arms...just in time to keep Mr. Beast from croaking''), a didactic and disappointing sequel. ``Auguste,'' the handsome ex-beast, is vain and thoughtless; worse, he spends too much time with cronies and too little at his kingly (and, presently, parental) duties. He's not even there for the birth of his children—three boys, each with a beastly characteristic: fangs, paws, a tail. ``It's not my fault!'' is his predictable reaction, and he absents himself while the children run out of control—until suddenly he sees their behavior as dangerous and lays down the law with instant results. Sure, dads are important, but Beauty's total inability to cope is hard to take—even given that her sons are suffering from an enchantment as well as from a shiftless father. Tunnell (Chinook!, p. 235) can do better. Cymerman's cartoony illustrations are in the parodic spirit of the text. (Picture book. 5-9)