FLOCKS OF BIRDS

First published in 1965 with illustrations by Joan Berg, this was characterized by Kirkus originally as "another evocative story for the inert"; and there is no reason to alter that judgment now. A little girl, lying in bed, asks her mother for "something good to think about." "Flocks of birds," says her mother—and proceeds to elaborate on the passage of birds "over the water, over the silvery sand, over the city where people are hurrying through the autumn wind on their way to work"; and so on. Meanwhile the sky darkens outside. . . until we see the birds flying over the house where the little girl is now asleep. It is lulling, to be sure, and the pictures—in shades of blue and sand—have the same generalized, soothing aspect. But it's an uninflected, almost unindividuated reverie from end to end.