CLOUDS FOR DINNER

All happy families are not alike in this picture book from Perkins (Home Lovely, 1995), as Janet finds out when she goes to stay with her aunt. Janet lives in a house on a hill up 87 steps, where her parents love the view and the clouds, and where dinner might be apples and bits of cheese or muffins. She loves visiting her cousins for the weekend, sitting down with them three times a day for ``a big, noisy meal'' and enjoying their TV room. But when Janet wakes early to see a lovely dawn, no one understands her joy in it but her mother. Like the author's first book, the sentiments are grounded and childlike, but this time the message is rather heavy, and not quite lightened by the illustrations. Although the household objects and landscapes are rendered beautifully—Perkins has a genuine gift for the nuances of clouds in their variegated guises and colors—the people appear too posed. Still, Janet's wistfulness and yearnings permeate each page. (Picture book. 5-8)