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SIX RAGS APIECE by Marcia Newfield

SIX RAGS APIECE

By

Pub Date: Oct. 15th, 1976
Publisher: Warne

Unlikely sibling surrogates, Fuzzy Bear and Velvet Belly, a cat, are toy animals who are made on the same day, stuffed with six rags each, and then ""put in the crib together, to wait for Baby to get born."" They wait and ""Baby"" at last turns up--twins. That's the first of five stories; in the second Velvet despairs of the babies ever ""knowing us""--until one day little Milton crawls over and snuggles up to her. Elsewhere Velvet gets sick but Fuzzy cures her by replacing a rag that's come out, Fuzzy becomes jealous of Velvet's belly but she teaches him to be happy with his own features, and, later, at the playground, older children take the animals away but then return them, to the relief of twins and toys alike. Fuzzy and Velvet are models of mutual support, but Fuzzy's name could also describe the nature of their roles here, and the stories are as limp as their heroes. And though Langner's soft drawings make the babies and other children beguilingly round and intent, older siblings are unlikely to see themselves or each other in her cuddly-cute stuffed animals.