ARTHUR'S EYES

Arthur's Nose (1976) identified Arthur as an aardvark, giving an old story at least one distinguishing feature; here, his species is unspecified and his misery at having to wear glasses differs from that of his many predecessors only in being met more nearly head-on--as when Arthur, hiding those hated specs (he's been called, of course, ""four-eyes""), blunders into the girls' room at school. Then, after a little quiet encouragement from his moose teacher (who has glasses for reading just like his), Arthur retrieves the glasses, scores ten baskets in gym, gets all the problems on the board right--and makes glasses the new rage: classmate Francine comes to school sporting a lenseless movie-star pair. Executed with Brown's customary brash comic energy, this does make the problem less than usually that of a sensitive odd-child-out.