POLAR

This is the kind of story that people tend to read aloud in baby talk. Polar is a fuzzy white teddy bear who sleeps cozily with two dolls but misses the Arctic--and is moved one morning to ""toboggan"" in a cardboard box down a ""snow white counter-pane"" that slopes to the floor from the top of a chest of drawers. Tumbling down, Polar is knocked numb; the dolls make a stretcher and rush him to the hospital; he's bandaged, put in traction, recovers, comes home. Any teddy-bear owner might play such a game, but with Baker's craftsy collages (similar to those for her own Grandmother, above) giving Polar in his knits a fuzzy third dimension, this enactment cloys.