MISTER TOAD

T. Tamson Toad, whose comfortable home is pleasantly situated in a garden wall (``Though Mrs. Quimby did her share of the garden work, Mister Toad always called it his garden''), is troubled by his elderly neighbor's new cat—and by a queen bee who insists on moving in with her ``entourage.'' Resourcefully, he welcomes the bees and lets them bear the brunt of the cat's next visit—so that both leave him alone thereafter. Told with in economical style and whimsical turns of phrase recalling Beatrix Potter's stories, this 8-inch-square book has cleanly designed illustrations that present its hero's tidy home with loving care; Mister Toad himself, alert and debonair, might be a neighbor of Leslie Brooke's toad in A Roundabout Turn (1939). Charming. (Young reader/Picture book. 5-8)