The Books

One Potato Review

Another installment in Pinkwater’s polar bear series, about Irving and Muktuk, who really aren’t as bad as all that (they never eat humans), only a little dim and impetuous, especially around blueberry muffins; not even the slammer proves sufficiently discouraging. Still, here they’re scared straight, by a bunny no less, who will not put up with their teasing, and briskly dispenses with warnings and ritual ultimatums, running straight over and psychotically biting their ankles. “The bunny is violent,” complain Irving and Muktuk to the zoo director. “Make him go away.” But he doesn’t, and the bears end up actually behaving themselves in his company, at exactly the sort of party they have a reputation for disrupting. The bunny ends up pretty much minding his own business, yet his inscrutable little presence – “Is he watching us?” the polar bears whisper – proves finally more inhibiting than threats they can usually see to their ends - and, happily, choose to ignore.

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