CROSBY

Crosby wears ratty old clothes and likes to save bits and pieces of junk. He doesn't pay attention in school, and he has a lot of questions that he never asks. Mostly Crosby just keeps to himself. When he finds a battered, half-broken kite, he fixes it up and sets it flying. That act attracts a friend, someone that Crosby looks forward to seeing again. With its blend of reality and fantasy (the kite talks) this is a strange story to offer the picture-book set, but Haseley (Getting Him, 1994, etc.) does give the melancholy story an emotionally satisfying ending. Green's illustrations are glorious jewel-tone paintings, more expressive than accomplished, but eye-catching all the same. Just for the record, Crosby is drawn as a child with a dusky black complexion, while his new friend is small and yellow. (Picture book. 5-8)