Cub's problem is that, though he lives on the edge of a scary woods, his parents will not allow him to enter them alone and are too busy to explore them with him. After he concocts a rather silly plan to buy his parents' time, they realize just what their refusal has meant to him and vow to take him at once to the woods. There is undoubtedly some redeeming psycho-social value in the author's reassurances about preoccupied parents and the artist's portrayal of the mother at a drawing board instead of a kitchen sink, but children attracted by the title are bound to be disappointed that the reader is never taken past the edge of those scary woods.