ALEX IS MY FRIEND

From the time Ben is coming in a stroller to the park where they first meet, Alex and Ben are close friends. At five, Ben notices that he's getting much taller than Alex, and Mama explains that Alex will always be unusually small: ``It is how he was born.'' Later, after his special back operation, Alex sometimes needs a wheelchair; at the story's end, Ben is a head taller and ``can run faster than Alex, but [Alex] still tells funnier jokes.'' Russo's attractive illustrative style— expressive, simply delineated faces and flat, generalized forms in intense, subtly modulated colors—reflect the text's cheerfully sensible approach to its serious theme. (Picture book. 3-7)