MISTER TOAD

T. Tamson Toad, whose comfortable home is pleasantly situated in a garden wall (""Though Mrs. Quimby did her share of the garden work, Mister Toad always called it his garden""), is troubled by his elderly neighbor's new cat--and by a queen bee who insists on moving in with her ""entourage."" Resourcefully, he welcomes the bees and lets them bear the brunt of the cat's next visit--so that both leave him alone thereafter. Told with in economical style and whimsical turns of phrase recalling Beatrix Potter's stories, this 8-inchsquare book has cleanly designed illustrations that present its hero's tidy home with loving care; Mister Toad himself, alert and debonair, might be a neighbor of Leslie Brooke's toad in a Roundabout Turn (1939). Charming.