DEAR BEAR

Katie and the bear who lives under the stairs at her house start a correspondence. At first, Katie just tells him to shove off. But after the bear takes a brief vacation, Katie misses the brute, and when he writes that he has been ill, she prepares a hot-water bottle for him. Finally, the two come face to face (at Mom's connivance) for a tea party. There is little pungency in this bogey-in-the-closet tale: no intimation that Ursus horribilis may indeed reside under the stairs, no tension, no drama in the denouement, no appreciation of fear's role—no bite, as it were. The artwork is overly benign, the colors too washed out for any edginess. See Helen Cooper's stair-dwelling griz (The Bear Under the Stairs, 1993) for a convincing bear scare. From the beginning, it's clear that newcomer Harrison's bear is a harmless figment. Katie might just as well have had this correspondence with her parrot. (Fiction/Picture book. 4-8)