SMALL BEER

This is not what I was led to expect from the suggestion that it was part of the Bemelmans' autobiographical panel. Instead, it reads as a collection of sketches in which he plays a part, now and again, but which are very elusively linked together (if linked at all). Of course they are enchanting — everything he does is enchanting. And they abound in humor, a more fragile, exotic humor, perhaps, with smiles as their reward rather than laughs or even chuckles. They reflect the people in Bemelmans' checkered history; the incidents which make good tales; but they are rarely autobiographical, and should stand alone as a collection of amusing episodes, by a unique artist.