MAY I VISIT

The latest of Zolotow's tender, plotless reassurances has a little girl, after her married sister's visit, asking her mother if she, too, might come back to visit when she grows up—if she doesn't spill talcum on the bathroom floor, drop crumbs on the carpet, knock over the plant, and do all the other careless things that Erik Blegvad shows her doing as a child. Her mother of course replies that "even though you do. . . those things, it will be fun to have you then, just as it is now!" Blegvad gives the domestic scenes a warm look to match the sentiments. . . but we find Zolotow's framework here even flimsier than usual.