The Friendly Four
Grade 2-4&ndash;Free-verse poems tell the story of a group of children who find each other during one otherwise lonely summer. Seven-year-old Drummer is anticipating a Bummer Summer: Summer's a bummer,/nobody to chase,/nobody to catch the ball/I throw./Hurry up, September!/Get here, fall!/so I can be with/all my friends again. Before long, though, Dorene moves in down the street. Then Louis arrives. The last of the group is Rae, who's sent to stay with Dorene and her family because of her mother's illness. The African-American friends all bond, play, and build and paint an elaborate cardboard town they call Goodsummer. The simple watercolors work well at setting scenes of tidy streets lined with homes and lots of backyards and parks. Gilchrist's talent shows in her use of color, splashed with light, but some of her figures look a bit stiff. The children's voices are printed in different colors, making this title a natural choice for choral reading. For a younger audience than most novels-in-verse, this accessible and well-written book has a nostalgic tone&ndash;you don't see a television or computer game anywhere, and the children's play is centered on activities such as dress-up, slides and swings, and playing school.&ndash;Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, ILCopyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.