HARRIET'S HARE

King-Smith's whimsical fantasy gets a science fiction twist in this story of a friendship between a girl and a vacationing extraterrestrial in the role usually assigned to a fairy godmother. Harriet, eight, has been contentedly living with her father and pony on an English farm. Then she meets a hare who likes to chat. It turns out that he is just visiting Earth and trying out various life forms, although he seems to prefer being a hare. He recognizes Harriet's need for a mother and provides one. She arrives in the form of a children's book writer who first stops at the farm for eggs and befriends both Harriet and her widower father; the latter she ultimately agrees to marry. This is another of King-Smith's quality easy chapter books, though not as compelling as Babe: The Gallant Pig or Three Terrible Trins (both Crown, 1993 and 1994). But if there is less action in this than in some of his more recent titles, the cover makes it clear that this is aimed at more thoughtful readers, who will enjoy it immensely. (Fiction. 7-10)