SHALOM, HAVER

Yitzhak Rabin (192295) was nothing if not a complex personality, and that is why Sofer's minimalist elegy (which also appears in Hebrew translation) feels barren and void of texture. ``How do you say goodbye to a friend? . . . You remember him as a kid just like you,'' starts Sofer, but the accompanying family and archive photos of the young Rabin will look like grainy antiques to most modern readers. Rabin is next remembered as a husband and father, soldier and politician, devoted to children, and here the text is more successful—aided by photographs that have a less- staged, spontaneous look—and makes human a public figure. The book is solely a tribute, not a biography—so Sofer may be forgiven for emphasizing the Rabin-as-peacemaker angle over the earlier Rabin-as-warrior image and for avoiding his harsher side. The book closes with the days of grief following Rabin's assassination: ``How do you say goodbye to a friend?'' Sofer councils to respect anger and sadness, light a candle, say a prayer, draw a picture, remember. Worthy suggestions, somewhat sentimentally conveyed. (Picture book. 4-8)