WHERE'S OUR MAMA?

Echoing a Russian folk tale, ``My Mother Is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World,'' Goode sets her story in early 20th-century Paris and provides an obliging gendarme to try to help two little children locate their mother, who has left them in the elegant, crowded train station while she runs after her blown-away hat. Misled by the children's artless responses to the ladies he produces (of a singer: ``Oh, no, sir. Our mama is very slim. But Mama cooks the best food in the world''), the gendarme leads them all over Paris before his small charges remember that they were supposed to stay put till Mama returned. Goode's beautifully designed illustrations evoke the city's fabled glamour while playfully bringing out the situation's comic side. A charming transformation of a story that deftly dramatizes the child's-eye view of a most important person. Contains one shushing librarian—and an unlikely number of dark faces, given the setting. (Picture book. 4-8)*justify no*