MAGIC COMES IN ITS TIME

Returning to the Germany of his birth with his adoptive parents (Dad's a US Army doctor), Jonathan makes the mistake of confiding a beloved family story to his new class. It's true that his father brought him home as an orphan the day that storks settled on their roof, a lucky conjunction reported in the local papers at the time, but Jonathan's abbreviated version (``I was brought by the storks'') elicits only derision—especially from Robert. He and Jonathan are both fascinated by storks; each hopes to attract a pair back to a town whose rising population and ubiquitous TV antennas have made them abandon it; Jonathan also secretly hopes that storks' luck will bring him a sibling. At first, the boys trade information in unfriendly competition, but after Jonathan starts to build an inviting nest in a vacant field, the sparring becomes cooperation and, inevitably, friendship. It's too good to be true that storks choose the prepared site, and newborn twins become available for adoption soon after (while portrayal of the twins' birth mother's feelings and circumstances is, at best, simplistic). Still, the interaction of the boys is healthy and believable, the outcome is heartwarming, and Ben-Ami's sensitive b&w illustrations—whether of second-graders or of storks—are especially affecting. (Fiction/Young reader. 7-10)