MARGIE AND ME
By
The first-person narrative, in near-primerese, of a little gift who finds a dog and fortuitously gets to keep her: after the usual posting of notices and placing of ads, a couple turns up to claim ""Margie""--only to announce that they're going away and the weeping little girl can have her for good. This fiat, stale bit of coincidence is followed by a few pages, concerning the dog's bee sting, that can barely be called an incident; and a third ostensible episode in which the dog runs off--""Where could you be?""--to ""our favorite place, the playground"" (and, for a tiny smile) brings home another dog: In this nonstarter, even the Weinhaus illustrations look vacuous.