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MORE FROM HOUND AND BEAR by Dick Gackenbach

MORE FROM HOUND AND BEAR

By

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1980
Publisher: Clarion/Houghton Mifflin

What a noodlehead,"" mutters Bear, and indeed Hound is one--wearing a mane so he will be thought brave like Lion, dark glasses to seem wise like Raccoon, and, silliest of all, stilts to look tall like Giraffe. To be disabused of his foolishness, stilt-walking Hound must fall into a hole--whereupon a cowering Lion confesses that he's afraid to help him out (""I might fall in too""), Raccoon admits he doesn't know how to help, Giraffe says he'd get dizzy looking down into a hole. . . and good friend Bear comes to his rescue with a rope and a pair of donkey ears ""because everyone says you have been acting like a silly jackass."" After this labored contrivance, redeemed only by the last line, come two lesser tales: one an agreeable enough string of charitable animal encounters, which demonstrates to curmudgeonly Hound that one favor begets another, and the last a standard animal-friendship turn, in which Hound and Bear argue over whether Hound has really purchased a ""wishing nut"" and Hound wins his point because his wish (for Bear's friendship) has come true. Unremarkable, like Hound and Bear (1976).