AND TWELVE CHINESE ACROBATS

A colorful episode from the history of Yolen's family—her grandparents and their eight children—marinaded in Old World nostalgia. The oldest son, Lou, is a charming no-goodnik who keeps getting in trouble and finally is sent away to school. Everybody becomes sad—especially Wolf, Lou's younger brother (and Yolen's father), who idolizes him. When they learn that Lou has been dismissed for gambling, everybody seems even sadder. The next time Lou shows up, he is the manager of a troupe of 12 Chinese acrobats whom he met while working in a Moscow circus. When the acrobats leave the shtetl in the spring, Lou's father sends him to America to find a place for the family. Yolen's animated narrative, liberally sprinkled with Yiddish, sticks to Wolf's point of view, and accordingly alternates between acute happiness and sorrow. Gralley's antic b&w pictures are mildly Sendakian; her characters, with pointy ears and round foreheads, are simultaneously good- looking and peculiar in appearance. A book radiating family warmth, in words, art, and remembrance. (Fiction. 7-10)