Given its mistaken identities and characters meandering through the woods, this irresistible bedtime story is faintly reminiscent of certain Shakespearean comedies and the cartoonlike characters in Calvin and Hobbes. When little Eddie braves the ``dark and horrible'' woods to look for his lost teddy bear Freddie, he confuses a real bear's giant teddy with his own. ``How did you get to be this size?'' he asks. Elsewhere in the woods, the real bear is sobbing over Eddie's Freddie, thinking his own teddy bear has shrunk. Alborough ( Beaky ) cleverly plots the confrontation scene as the real bear ``stomps toward . . . the giant teddy and Eddie,'' and by book's end both real bear and Eddie are reassuringly tucked in their respective beds, ``huddled and cuddled with their own little teds.'' Alborough's verse adroitly employs kid-pleasing rhythms and repetitions, while his watercolor, crayon and pencil drawings underscore the broad comedy of this perfectly satisfying scenario of scary fun. Ages 3-up. (Aug.)
