THE SUMMER OF STANLEY

Kinsey-Warnock (Sweet Memories Still, 1997, etc.) sets her story in 1945 when Molly's father is off fighting in the war and she, her mother, brother Tyler, and grandfather keep the home fires burning and the Victory Garden growing. Grandpa gives Molly an unwelcome pet for her birthday—a goat whom, predictably, only Tyler loves. Molly had wanted a bicycle like her best friend Annie's, not a noisy eating machine. Stanley proves his worth one day when Molly is in charge of Tyler, who decides to go swimming against Molly's orders. Annie and Molly are shocked to discover Tyler in very deep water and in danger of drowning, until Molly sends Stanley to the rescue. The goat saves the boy but injures himself in the swift current. The real star of this competent but predictable book is Gates's marvelously detailed and luminous art; it hardly evokes 1945, but does bring to glowing, bucolic life a gentler—though war-torn—time. (Picture book. 4-8)