HUMPHREY'S BEAR

When Humphrey insists on taking his father's old bear to bed, the bear grows large and takes him on a night voyage full of adventures. Sailing off in a handy sailboat, with porpoises to sing to them and hot chocolate to keep them warm, their idyll is briefly interrupted by a typhoon that separates them till they wash ashore on a desert isle, where Humphrey drifts off to sleep. ""Isn't he too old to sleep with a toy bear?"" his father had asked earlier; but now Dad remembers his own attachment to the same bear. A pleasantly rounded bedtime story, although there is a surfeit of picture books with this theme. Joyce's dark, stylized illustrations, brooding and dreamy, are of more interest than the insipid text. With their sculptural figures and careful design, they are reminiscent of Van Allsburg's work, with the nice additions of a family depicted with warmth and tenderness.