CHERRY TIME

Shyness controls a small boy’s life until he finds a friend. A shy little boy avoids interaction with other people, waiting on the stairs of his apartment building to make sure no one’s there, hiding when his mother’s friend visits and sitting alone on his daily train ride to school. When his birthday arrives, the boy chooses Max, the most fearless dog he can find, and everything changes. With Max in the lead, the boy isn’t afraid to go places, and that’s how he meets Ruby, a lonely girl who sits in the cherry tree outside school. Shy because her parents often move, Ruby and the boy become friends and spend the summer dreaming in the cherry tree and eating cherry cake at Ruby’s trailer home. When summer ends and Ruby’s family prepares to move on, the two timid friends promise they will “be brave even without each other.” Bunge’s whimsical illustrations with their charmingly European flavor and dramatic use of perspective to emphasize the isolation of the shy are the perfect complement to this quiet story of reaching out to touch someone. (Picture book. 4-7)