THERE AND BACK AGAIN
By
Illustrator Jones (best known here for Kathleen Lines' Lavender's Blue, 1954) dreams up a brisk adventure for Bumby, an appealing limp stuffed rabbit who, cross and lonely when the children go away and leave him, decides to go sailing in the boys' toy boat. Real animals assist him at every step--a cat carries the boat to the stream, two swans save him from drowning, a pigeon flies him home, and on the way a whole forest full of creatures gives him a party. Jones' familiar situation, naive narration, and old-fashioned, hatched-over watercolors make this seem almost an anachronism; but small children will still respond to the plucky unequipped hero, the protective animals, and the uninflected thrills.