THE LAZY BEAR

Wildsmith's fable about a bear who finds a wagon and invites his friends the raccoon, the deer and the goat to share his rides, but exploits them by making them push him uphill, might carry more weight if the author/illustrator showed more interest in his characters' thoughts and behavior. As it is, not only the animals' expressions but even their standardized figures have to take a back seat to his showy artificial landscapes, which look more like the wild dream of an extraterrestrial color freak than the setting for an essentially conventional lesson in sharing.