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THE FRIENDLY WOODS by Charles House

THE FRIENDLY WOODS

By

Pub Date: Dec. 1st, 1973
Publisher: Four Winds Press

A lesson in woodlore and a dose of confidence-bolstering are wrapped up together in a thin story about Billy, who is afraid of the woods but enters them with friend Ralphie when his dog Toast fails to come home and his Dad (busy fixing his stilts for a parade) tells him that ""the woods are very much like a book"" and nobody's scared of a book. Following what they assume is Toast's trail, the boys come upon another track that seems to indicate that a big creature is also pursuing the dog, but at last Billy reads the signs correctly and deduces that the big track has been made by his father on stilts, out to retrieve Toast and teach Billy about the woods. Uncertainty as to Toast's fate and the big creature's identity serve as bait for the curious, De Larrea's soft blue and rose watercolors reinforce the friendly atmosphere, and there's a bonus of sixteen or so different animal tracks described and pictured at the end -- but all together it's neither weighty nor sharp enough to make much of an impression.