LUNCH FOR LENNIE

Catherine Woolley's sensitive simplicity puts life into a very important meal time happening in a four-year-old's small world. After a breakfast hour decision that he is a dog, Lennie spends the morning padding a growling, wagging way up and down the sidewalk in front of his house. Doubly hungry at noon because his mother said no to a dog-style breakfast on the floor, Lennie, still in a canine frame of mind, is offered an unappetizing bone. A sudden change to a giraffe so he can reach up to the table sets off a whole series of identities- a frog, a lion, a kangaroo- all of which get offered the appropriate and unpalatable meal in spite of the wiles of their little creator. Then patient Mother sits down to her own delicious steak, potatoes and vegetables and Lennie who can't stand it any longer turns into a new Lennie-Lennie himself-and eats lunch the right way. The text is definitely within the ken of a first or second grader, but it's the younger ones who will be more fascinated. Meg Wohlberg's wash and ink drawings of a cute blond boy and his pretty mother are pleasant