When Bear decides to go into “people town” one night, he finds a discarded red couch in a pile of junk. He doesn’t know what it is, but he immediately takes a shine to it, loving that it’s “a springy thing. A bouncy thing. A sit-on-it, hop-on-it, jump-on-it thing.” In other words, a Thingity-Jig. He rushes to ask his friends (a rabbit, a fox, and a raccoon) for help moving the thingity-jig to their forest home, but they are too sleepy and want Bear to leave them alone. So Bear returns on his own and decides that with some wheels, he can move it. With some old scraps he builds a Rolly-Rumpity, but then he needs help lifting the Thingity-Jig onto the Rolly-Rumpity, so once again he returns to his friends. Two more rejections lead to two more inventions (a Lifty-Uppity and a Pushy-Poppity) so that Bear can finally get the Thingity-Jig home. By then the other animals are awake and, of course, they love bouncing, jumping, and sitting on the Thingity-Jig, too. Bear’s clever inventions—all based on simple mechanics like the wheel, the lever, and the pulley—are playfully described, and the funny, energetic illustrations complement the story well. (Ages 3-6)