MR. BEAR AND THE ROBBERS

Dramatic irony at a four-year-old level, as lumbering Mr. Bear in the dead of night helps three rabbits clean out the cottage of another rabbit family (""we are taking their things to fix up as a surprise,"" he is told) and then, as the three robbers sleep in their mountain ""workshop,"" repairs all the furniture and returns it to the owners. When the family wakes to find the place refurbished, Mr. Bear points, still unaware, to the would-be culprits who have followed him from the mountain: ""These rabbits are the ones to thank. I only helped them."" And so everyone stays for birthday cake and presents. Like the story the pictures are deliberately, boldly naive, with a sly touch which insures that those three slouching, stiff-eared robbers will steal the show if nothing else.