STELLA'S BULL
by Frances Arrington & illustrated by Aileen Arrington
A Depression-era poignancy hovers over this tale of fear and its consequences. Mary Wilson has a bad case of the heebie- jeebies prompted by her neighbor Stella's bull. Not that she's seen the bull, mind you, but she knows it is nothing but bad news. (Or is the bull just a lot of bull?) When her spelling book accidently gets tossed into the brute's territory, Mary Wilson decides it is better to suffer the teacher's wrath than the bull's horns. After a couple of days, she figures otherwise and confronts the bovine menace, although her reasons for doing so remain mysterious (Is detention worse than a big-league drubbing?). The bull makes a cameo appearance and Mary Wilson recovers her notebook, but the confrontation is strangely anticlimactic. Arrington's illustrations, despite (at their best) a pointillist's moody and haunting feel, lack the edge to suggest a threat lurking just off the page. (Picture book. 4-8)