HARRY'S VISIT

Pleasant handling of a standard plot: a small child goes off on a reluctant visit and comes home enthusiastic. (""I can hardly wait for next time."") The day with father's friends and their children begins poorly, with Harry spending ""the longest morning in my life"" looking et books and listening to records with the girl, Judy. At lunch his peanut butter is on the wrong kind of bread and he doesn't like--more accurately, doesn't try--the dessert. But after lunch Jonathan, who's older, takes him along to the playground, where he practices shooting basketballs into a low basket with another younger kid, and where Jonathan makes him feel part of the gang. Harry's first-person, present-tense account, moving from wry remarks and uncomfortable moments to small satisfactions such as walking to the playground or the ice cream store (et home there is nothing to walk to), gives a laconic, brisk tone to the easy-reader sentences; and Abolafia projects Harry's moods and the other kids' auras with a complementary light hand and sprightly humor.