TEDDY BEAR, TEDDY BEAR

Illustrated by a teddy bear specialist, these 14 new rhymes are just the ticket for a spell of quality lap time. Schertle (When the Moon Is High, p. 397) writes of bears in chairs, and bears on stairs—“Bears on the staircase / all in a row, / bears on the banister— / LOOK OUT BELOW!”—bears messy and neat; bears loud, quiet, or both in turn; good little bears and those having a “Bad Bear Day.” Griffith (Blessings and Prayers for Little Bears, 2002, etc.) places fuzzy, animated teddies in cozy domestic scenes chockablock with brightly colored, exactly rendered toys, children’s clothing, patterned fabrics, household pets and the occasional doting child. A cockle-warming successor, all in all, to Michael and Kathleen Hague’s Alphabears (1984) and Numbears (1986), or, of course, Ruth Krauss’s classic rhyme. (Picture book/poetry. 5-9)