MY ISLAND GRANDMA
by Kathryn Lasky & illustrated by Amy Schwartz
Yet another summer idyll with a grandparent—this one notable for lyrical yet unsentimental language depicting an independent, warmhearted woman and for the bracing realism of its detail. Grandma picks sea herbs for salad and periwinkles for soup but, Abbey confides, ``I hate them both''; there's fascinating real blood on a hatching wild duck egg, but Grandma hurries her away—``When you're getting born, you need to be left with your own kind.'' When the two go sailing, they have a friendly exchange of ``cloud stories''—Abbey's are scary, Grandma's sometimes didactic, and each comments freely on the other's style. Varying the intimacy of closeups with panoramic vistas and different points of view, Schwartz's watercolors capture the warmth and richness of the relationship while evoking the sensations of a Maine summer with deft informality. A book that ranks high in a frequently exploited genre. (Picture book. 3-8)