A HOME WITH AUNT FLORRY

At first one hardly knows who to sympathize with here -- unbalanced, untidy Aunt Florry, who collects castoff furniture and street pigeons in her New York loft, or the orphaned twins she is fostering, who seem to think being made to do dishes and the laundry is a form of child exploitation. Fortunately, this turns out not to be a debate over lifestyles (""bourgeois"" vs. senile) but a kind of cozy, urban version of The Boxcar Children that succeeds despite the brother and sister's flat personalities. When Aunt Florry breaks her hip and goes to a nursing home, Jason and Wendy survive quite nicely in the cavernous empty loft building -- fending off a derelict prowler and the man serving an eviction notice, enjoying a snowstorm and entertaining a school friend with Jason's home baked cake. A less privileged neighbor, Tomas, is present to remind the twins (and us) that their temporary scavenging is not to be confused with actual poverty, but nevertheless, as Wendy says, ""it feels like Robinson Crusoe"" and in a modest, sheltered way satisfies the same universal daydream.