THE GYPSIES' TALE

In their youth, the gypsy couple settles in a cottage by a cherry tree (``when they sat beneath it and the petals fell like April snow...they could hardly speak for the sudden beauty of it''). The crops are bountiful; they even share gladly with the birds. But the tree ages and its bounty diminishes until the wife urges her husband to chase the birds from a last meager crop; still, that winter, they feed the birds. Years later, leading them to a grove of young cherry trees, the birds show how they planted it, and the gypsies gather a fine harvest, from which they plant a new tree by their home. Nicely complementing the lyrical story, Kelly's well-crafted watercolors, set in a cozy long ago and far away, are gentle and expressive. A perfect antidote to the abusive relationship in Silverstein's The Giving Tree. (Picture book. 5-10)