A VISIT TO AMY-CLAIRE
by Claudia Mills & illustrated by Sheila Hamanaka
Five-year-old Rachel happily anticipates a family visit to her cousin Amy-Claire, seven. Unfortunately, unlike last year when the two spent hours playing school, Amy-Claire now turns out to be most interested in playing house with Rachel's scorned little sister Jessie, pretending that she's Jessie's mother. Disappointed and excluded, Rachel sulks at first but then finally comes up with a good solution: she'll join Amy-Claire's pretend family as Jessie's big sister. The warm, realistic story is beautifully visualized in Hamanaka's vibrant oils, where the appealingly expressive Japanese-American children appear in handsomely generalized settings with minimal detail. (Picture book. 5-8)