The children will have to share this book with their parents—a proud privilege which as been theirs with every really first-rate book ever written for children from Alice in Wonderland all the way to Penrod. For none of us has achieved parenthood or aunt-or-uncle-hood without being a child first and this book reminds us of it. It aches with laughter, because its fun is the kind that happened to all of us. Children will see only the fun—the rest of us will be haunted a little by a nostalgic pathos that nudges our hearts as we laugh.

Jane was practically the middle Moffat, Sylvie and Joey having come ahead of her and Rufus after. Now, at the age of ten, she had a Best Friend and that withdrew her somewhat from the bosom of the family. But how happily she fitted into their exact midst when they acted The Three Bears, although on that occasion she misplaced her head for a while! Jane, being a child of inspiration, overcame even that difficulty.

The pictures by Louis Slobodkin should not be mentioned in a separate paragraph because they are part and parcel of the book, almost unbelievably inseparable from it, and like the book, generously running over with a deep and satisfying quality of amusement.

From the dust jacket