LOSING THINGS AT MR. MUDD'S

Staying with ``distant relative'' Mr. Mudd, Lucy is shown many wonderful things (music-boxes, old books) and even given a real ruby ring, but she's deprived of any pleasure by his constant warnings: everything is too precious to be touched. Rebelliously, Lucy takes the ring—and then loses it. Cowed by Mr. Mudd's anger, she is reluctant to tell him when she also loses her first tooth, but then bursts forth with all her true feelings. Fortunately, Mr. Mudd is human, too: Realizing his error, he slips the ring (which he's found) under her pillow in place of the tooth, then graciously reforms. The message is obvious, but it's told with enough grace to give it some power. Hidy's computer-generated illustrations (full details in an extensive colophon) are a mixed success: simple lines delineate emotions with the surprising sensitivity of recent film animation, and some of the compositions—especially where colored forms are silhouetted against a white ground—are elegantly spare. The sophisticated color sometimes seems garish, or merely stolid; more often, however, the subtle tones and juxtapositions contribute meaning. An interesting effort, adding up to more than just a worthy experiment. (Picture book. 4-8)