THE LITTLE FIREMAN
by Margaret Wise Brown
A new edition with new pictures by Esphry Slobodkina in a green and red cutout and patch-work technique that turns this into a companion piece for The Little Farmer and The Little Cowboy Our opinion of Margaret Wise Brown's Big and Little series started on the downgrade with the cowboy book where a monotony of the big versus little themes and some rather stiff, faceless figures detracted from warmth and reality. Here there is a nice ending when the little fireman has a dream of putting out a big fire while the big fireman dreams the reverse, but the parallel road towards climax is contrived and illogical, so we still don't endorse whole-heartedly.