TWO BEAR CUBS

An ultra-simple picture book, in fiat solid colors, this opens with some pleasantly rounded family groupings: one shows the two cubs play-wrestling, with the mother bear a large protective shape behind them. Then, a lighter color is introduced, a more quickening curve, and a new creature--a strutting, high-tailed skunk. The cubs go off after the skunk; then the skunk turns and chases them. ""But where are they? And where is their mother?"" They find a honey tree and are chased by angry bees. ""Where is their mother?"" They try but fail to catch a fish. ""Where can their mother be?"" Finally, ""There she is!"" And, as Jonas' audience will have noticed, she's been there all along, watching them from behind a tree or a bush or tall grass. It's an old-fashioned picture-book ploy, not transcended here, but enacted with warmth and assurance.