THE BEAR

Young Tilly wakes to find a gigantic, affectionate polar bear filling her room, nearly, in this oversized thematic soul mate to Briggs's classic The Snowman (1978). Tilly's parents, of course, can't see it. But they go along with the joke even as the bear lumbers hugely about the house, knocking over furniture, emptying the honey jar in one slurp, proving itself not quite housebroken (``Horrible! Horrible! Horrible!'' Tilly mutters, stomping off to fetch a mop), but more than willing to let a small child give it a shampoo or nestle cozily in its lap. The text is entirely spoken- -mostly Tilly prattling to or about her new companion—and winds through and between Briggs's soft, low-contrast colored-pencil drawings. Whether seen in full-page scenes or cinematic sequences of smaller panels, the bear is never less than massive, but (despite a startling first appearance) never frightening either. It climbs out Tilly's window the following dawn as quietly as it arrived, leaving her, tearful, to be comforted by her father: ``Bears can't live in houses with people...that sort of thing only happens in story books.'' Slightly precious, but funny. (Book-of-the-Month alternate selection) (Picture book. 3-7)