RATS!

Five humorous short stories about the Fraser brothers—Edward and Jason—who first appeared in No Dogs Allowed (1992). The boys shop for school clothes, Jason agrees to go steady with a girl so that she will leave him alone, Edward is frightened by a Halloween haunted house, and they both deal with pet rats and a ruined sweater. These pleasant stories—of suburban childhoods in an intact family with few problems and siblings who mostly get along- -offer a welcome respite from the emotional upheavals of real life and the fiction that reflects it. Though lacking the depth and psychological insight of a Cleary or Hurwitz novel, Cutler's offers the pleasures of a 1950s sitcom: mild humor, problems solved quickly and easily, and family life the way we want it to be. (b&w illustrations) (Fiction. 7-10)