K^-Gr. 2. Based on the characters created by Don Freeman, these two bright picture books in the Viking Easy-to-Read series tell simple, lively stories about an African American girl, Lisa, and her teddy bear companion and alter ego, Corduroy, who seems passive and cuddly but takes charge when he has to. In Corduroy Writes a Letter, the bear writes to the baker and to the movie theater hoping to put small, important things right; Lisa copies him by writing to her radio station, and she gets them to play her favorite song. In the garden story, Corduroy is supposed to guard Lisa's bean seeds while she's at school. When he falls asleep, a dog digs up the seeds, and Corduroy has to find new ones to plant. What grows from those seeds is a surprise. Eitzen's line-and-watercolor illustrations, with fine crosshatched details, show Lisa and her sturdy bear at home together and out in their neighborhood. Most of the design is clear and accessible; however, in Letter, one page, with the text printed over a busy, colored picture, will be hard to decipher, even for practiced readers. --Hazel Rochman