HUG ME

A porcupine who wants to be hugged has more possibilities than a bunny who wants to be snuggled, and perhaps Stren's ending--Elliot meets a girl porcupine with the same wish and they gratify each other, ""very gently""--is as inevitable as it is predictable. Meanwhile there are spots of wit in Elliot's displaced yearnings and in the other animals' reactions to his attempts to ingratiate himself; and Stren's light, short-cut sketches have a distinctive if derivative look. But the fact that Elliot doesn't look much like a porcupine is indicative of the sensibility at work: only Elliot's problem and its built-in solution gear this for children; the rest partakes of a more sophisticated sort of cuteness.