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)