cover image How I Found a Friend

How I Found a Friend

Irina Hale. Viking Children's Books, $12.5 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-670-84286-5

A boy tells of making friends with another child after their stuffed bears--left on a ledge together--exchange hats and then greetings. The boys' mutual surprise at finding the bears wearing each other's headgear prompts them to speak. Hale's soft, unadorned paintings create a homey mood appropriate to a tale of friendship. But the plot itself is slight and somewhat disingenuous, and does not fulfill the promise of cozy intimacy held out by the art. Ages 2-6. (Mar.)