Pookie, that little white rabbit with the rainbow wings whose story began in the eponymous Pookie, returns in this second picture-book devoted to his adventures. Waking up early one morning, before his human girl, Belinda, had awakened, Pookie set out on an adventure, flying beyond the wood where he now lived. Alighting upon a tree, he met Tunkey, a monkey who belonged to a band of gypsies, and who performed in their traveling circus. Captured by the gypsies himself, Pookie was also made to perform, providing an unexpected act with his flight. But his distress and sadness made his wings shrink - just as love made them grow - and Pookie was soon in danger of being turned into stew. Fortunately, with the help of Tunkey, his cage-mate Getup - a stuffed giraffe separated from his beloved boy owner - Getup's stuffed-zebra friend Stripey, and a mute mouse named Kinker, Pookie was soon free again, and home with his beloved Belinda...

Published in 1947, the year after the first book, Pookie and the Gypsies didn't quite measure up to its predecessor in my estimation, either in story-line or in artwork. I did find the latter charming - thus my three stars, rather than the two I would have given the story alone - but the real and stuffed animals of the gypsies' circus, and the gypsies themselves, were not as appealing as the woodland creatures, both animal and magical, encountered in the first book. The story itself left me mostly indifferent - I couldn't work up much interest in Pookie's plight, being in no doubt that he would escape it - and I found the "gypsy" (Romany) sub-plot distasteful. The story of the gypsies who kidnap children (or winged rabbits, in this case) is a well-worn one, in the pages of children's literature, and Ivy Wallace's cute protagonist and sweet artwork wasn't enough to distract me from my distaste at its appearance here. I'm glad to have read this one, as I hope to read all ten of the Pookie books, but I do not strongly recommend it for its own sake. Fans of Pookie himself, or of Ivy L. Wallace's artwork, might want to take a look, but others can safely give it a miss. ( )