TOWN TEDDY & COUNTRY BEAR

Wandering considerably afield from the original, Bart changes the mice to teddy bears, removes most of the danger, and adds a more felicitous ending. Feeling, respectively, bored and stressed-out by their life-styles, Bandanna Bear and Tuxedo Teddy exchange digs in Wyoming and New York City—only to discover their inability to manage one-way streets, French restaurants, white-water rafting, hands-on barbeque, and similar local hazards. Discouraged, both prepare to retreat—but discover just in time that keeping each other company changes everything. Bart frames the tale in dual narratives, and illustrates it with alternating scenes of nattily dressed plushies in crowded-looking urban or country settings. A precious but good-humored recasting of the classic fable. (Picture book/folktale. 7-9)