BICYCLE RIDING

Twenty-two poems (about half previously published) mostly describing activities and observations of children out-of-doors, from playing baseball in a city street to wondering at fragile butterflies fluttering above crashing ocean waves. The order is roughly seasonal, going from summer to fall and back to summer again, and the verse is pleasant, but too frequently rhyme takes precedence over sense. In her warmly colored watercolors, Dugan cleverly fleshes out the images in the poetry; the only misstep is an anachronistic conceit in which winged maple seeds are shown spinning through the air along with orange autumn leaves. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)