HENRY AND THE CLUBHOUSE

Beverly Cleary continues to provide a measure of relief from the suffocating flood of books about unreal talking animals and stock characters in the way of dogs and ponies and horses — for her cast of characters can be matched in any average town and recognized as the children `round the block. And yet they have definite personalities of their own. Henry has been with us longest — and still manages to do more things wrong than right and yet come out on top. This time he has a paper route and nearly loses it at the very beginning by forgetting all about it when temptation comes his way. He gets in wrong with is mother and father; his boss, the paper man; he makes — or nearly- an enemy of Beezus, and betrays Murphy and Robert, by telling their secret code to- of all people- Ramona- and Beezus. But the things that happen seems real and there's humor for all ages in the story.