Fiddler: From the Land of Barely There

The bears in Barely There live shut up in their houses, each refusing to share his own special food with the others, until a strange new bear comes along with new ideas

ea. vol: illus. by Wendy Edelson. unpaged. (Land of Barely There Series). CIP. Multnomah Pr. 1988. Tr $8.95. Kindergarten-Grade 3 These precious and didactic stories are written by the author of the ``Serendipity Books'' (Multnomah) ``to communicate moral values to children.'' Fiddler uses a ``Stone Soup'' motif to entice three selfish bears from their countrified lairs to share honey, bumbleberries, and biscuits. Lest young readers miss the point, Cosgrove's fiddling bear sings ``the gift of sharing is the way to live. . .you'll find sharing love is better than money.'' In Shadow Chaser, Gabriel Groundhog won't come out of his bedroom because he is ``afraid of imaginary creatures that he thought hid in the winter's shadows. He felt that the best place to hide from his fears was behind a dream.'' Later, with the help of a bunny (the text says he has mittened hands but the picture shows gloves or bare rabbit digits) and his friends, who make disembodied hand shadows on the wall, Gabriel is able to laugh and go outside. Friendship has conquered fear. A surfeit of alliteration and adjectives (``a fireplace filled with golden glowing embers''; ``Fiddler plopped himself down. . .beside the table of plain pine planks'') get in the way of the narrative almost as if the storyteller were watching himself tell his stories. The watercolor-and-ink illustrations, crammed with prettified and overdone detail, suit the text perfectly. Susan Hepler, formerly at Windsor Public Library, Conn.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.