DRAT THESE BRATS!

They're back—Lil and papa's dental drill, Brent in the cement, Trish with a jellyfish—along with 40 other little terrors, in a third collection of comic verse featuring kids we hope never to meet. Some come to bad ends (Abner, who ``doesn't blanch/At the rushing avalanche,'' or Will, who gets too involved with a sausage- making machine and becomes the ``wurst'' brat); but most just raise hell and laughter in these short poems marked by clever rhymes, extravagant alliteration, and goofy puns. To wit: ``In his rotted rowboat, Rip/Rowed right to the roaring lip/Of a raging cataract,/Up against a boulder cracked,/Bounced shrill shrieks off canyon walls—/How pride goes before a falls!'' Again, Watts' little b&w drawings catch the gleeful mayhem. (Poetry. 8-11)