THE GOLLY SISTERS GO WEST

Traveling by horse-drawn covered wagon, May-May and Rose Golly joke and bicker their way along the American frontier, entertaining the locals with their singing and dancing as they go. Pictured as vigorously middle aged, the two sisters have six cheerful minor adventures, such as singing inside their moving wagon to console themselves for being lost, then discovering that their first audience has meanwhile assembled outdoors, and inventing "The Dance of the Squashed Hat" in honor of the hat demolished during one of their squabbles. Byars makes masterful use of the controlled vocabulary of this genre, ingeniously incorporating repetitions and contriving, apparently effortlessly, the cadences and word choices of natural speech. The sisters are brought to rambunctious life by Truesdell's facile pen, with bright color added. This is Byars' first easy reader; more would be welcome.