SAY IT!

"Say it! Say it!" cries the little girl as she and her mother take a walk through the autumn leaves. "It's a wild, wondrous, dazzling day," says the mother. Then, "It's a golden, shining, splendiferous day!" She comments in a similar vein on a little black cat, a big dog, floating milkweed fluff, and a bubbling brook; but finally as they near home she gives in and says it: "I love you I love you I love you I love you!"—which is really "what I've been saying all the time." Tender or mushy depending on the beholder, this latest of Zolotow's sweet nothings is balanced by Stevenson's pictures, which make the scenes bracingly splendiferous rather than soft-focus soggy.