RUFUS

Rufus is an orphan who lives with his older sister Rachel in Toft House--always wanting a ""proper home, a real Mum"" and unable to make them up--like the other some thirty children. But nobody stays there ""for always"" and Rachel leaves for a foster home and Rufus is wretchedly abandoned. A weekend with Rachel's new family only makes things worse and Rufus begins to steal. One of his acquisitions is a teacher's knife which enables him to slip into a world of dreams--a ""time which had no time"" which ultimately he must give up, along with the knife. . . . Mrs. Storr clears all the emotional deadfalls with great ease (along with that subliminal terrain which will suggest itself to the more mature reader) and is there any reader with a sensibility so corrugated to resist Rufus' appeal? A small book and just right for its size and any age.