STABLE

As he did in his acclaimed At Gleason's Gym (2007), Lewin conveys the spirit of a Brooklyn institution through sumptuously detailed, luminous watercolors. Kensington Stables, a relic from the days when horses provided necessary transportation, shelters 37 animals, large and small, with names like Lumpy, Marzipan and True. Tiny Chip gives pony rides at elementary schools; workhorse Fergus pulls the wedding carriage. A therapeutic riding program serves special-needs children every afternoon. The straightforward, present-tense prose conveys the central point that the horses are important to the community, and they should be preserved even as condos surround the little stable. A sequence of sepia-toned spreads sets up the modern, full-color tale, effectively illustrating the "time in America when horses did just about everything," from taking people to the beach to pulling fire engines. His paintings—of the shadowed stables, the children, the farrier and every individual horse—are so real readers will fairly smell the warm fug rising from the horses' backs and hear their hoofbeats clopping down the city streets. Beautiful. (author's note) (Picture book. 4-8)