NO PUSHING, NO DUCKING: Safety in the Water

Rinkoff generates a little friendly, feminist competition between Jenny and her more reckless friend Tom; Jennie holds her own in the neighborhood pool and out fishing (where she fearlessly baits her own hook), and when Tom nearly drowns at the beach it is Jennie's mother, a trained lifesaver, who rescues him. Even though Tom's bad scare is a heavyhanded way of discouraging those who might identify with his feckless behavior, the pair's occasional wisecracks and Roy Doty's slapstick humor do attract attention to the appended list of ""water safety club"" rules. However, the boating do's and don'ts are mostly aimed at somewhat older kids who would prob. ably consider the Tom and Jennie vignettes beneath their dignity, and the swimming rules consist, by and large, of the kind of commonsense cautions (""Watch out for undertow"") that are more likely to be memorized than followed. Shallow.