cover image Patricia Scarry's Little Willy and Spike: The Adventures of a Rabbit and His Porcupine Friend

Patricia Scarry's Little Willy and Spike: The Adventures of a Rabbit and His Porcupine Friend

Patricia M. Scarry. Golden Books, $7.95 (61pp) ISBN 978-0-307-65587-5

This collection of stories about the activities of friends Little Willy the Rabbit and Spike the Porcupine gets off to a slow start with its first offering, ""Captain Father Rabbit.'' After Father admonishes Little Willy and Spike not to stand up in a boat, he stands up and tips it over. In ``The Hiding Place,'' Mother Rabbit can't see Willy because he has on a pink-striped shirt, sits in a pink-striped chair eating pink-iced cookies and just ``blends in.'' These are slight stories, and coy; later ones fare better. Willy and Spike's imaginations run away with them when they make a scarecrow and frighten themselves; in a haunted house they discover a new friend. McQueen's pictures are full of snug details, and there is much life in them, but this is an uneven collection. (4-8)