I am- perhaps -- out of step with the majority, in preferring those of the d'Aulaire picture books dealing with Norway to those with historical American figures. Their glowing and lavish illustrations- full page lithographs, and the decorative marginal drawings, many in full color, seem somehow particularly out of key with the character of the shrewd Dr. Franklin. There's considerable ""color"" too in the recounting of the boyhood, but the spirit of the telling will carry many small readers along -- readers who are not ready for some of the shadings that make Franklin's life so overflowing.