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INTO THE PAINTED BEAR LAIR by Pamela Stearns

INTO THE PAINTED BEAR LAIR

By

Pub Date: Oct. 27th, 1976
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

A well-turned bit of frippery about Gregory's trip through a toy-store bear lair to a real one in a fairy tale kingdom. There the bear wants to eat him (it's a sign of respect); but a knight, who is also eyed greedily by the bear, comes to his aid; and then bear and boy accompany the brave, high-minded knight on two errands for the king: They rescue a disagreeable princess from a reluctant dragon and, more important, waken a bewitched and equally disagreeable prince in order to stop the whole kingdom from freezing over. In the process Gregory is faced with a hard choice between betraying the bear (now a sort of friend) or exposing the knight to Bear's jaws, but it's all resolved gratuitously--and nobody is devoured. The fact that the knight is a lady named Sir Rosemary adds a novel, fashionable twist, but it's essentially a surface switch.