THE MAN WHO WAS TOO LAZY TO FIX THINGS

The author of an old favorite, The Man Who Didn't Wash His Dishes (1950), comes up with a fable about a man who doesn't bother to maintain his fine new house. Actually, he's not so much lazy as inept, while his efforts at repair are just dumb (Band-Aids to mend a chair) and some of the details aren't apt (cats don't usually mar doors trying to get in). In the end, his brother's family arrives and puts everything to rights--but the man, it's implied, hasn't learned a thing. It's a promising idea; unfortunately, it hasn't been developed with enough logic or humor to make a satisfying story. Meanwhile, Cymerman makes a respectable picture book debut with pen-and-watercolor art that somewhat augments the humor, depicting ""the man"" as an amusingly heavy-eyed incompetent.