WAITING FOR THE EVENING STAR

With a well-honed narrative and expansive, beautifully detailed illustrations in Jeffers's signature crosshatch and watercolor, an evocation of Vermont country life pre-WW I. Berty watches the men cut ice to ship to Boston; shares syrup on snow; helps Grandmother start seeds indoors in early spring (transplanted carrots and peas in a book listing two farm museums as resources stretches credibility, but never mind); and listens to older brother Luke's dreams of the larger world as trains steam by. It all ends with Luke's departure, in 1917, for the Navy, and Berty's new realization of inexorable change through the passage of time—and with a wish, on a star, for his brother. There's some poetic license here—hunting dandelions in the woods, red autumn foliage in early September—but, overall, the details, from milk can to parlor stove, are authentic and meticulously rendered, while the era's comfortable, provincial security is nicely conveyed. (Picture book. 5-8)