COUSIN MARKIE AND OTHER DISASTERS

A humorous story about a boy realizing for the first time what it's like to be in the other guy's shoes: Ben tries hard to be nice when his nerdy cousin Markie visits for a weekend, but when Markie makes him miss out on the leaf-raking job that would finally have given him enough money to buy a skateboard, Ben takes out his frustration and disappointment on the younger boy. Unexpectedly, Markie lashes back, forcing Ben to think hard about his own behavior. That—and Markie's surprising chutzpah at an amusement park—cause Ben to notice unsuspected qualities in his weird cousin, and leads to the beginnings of a friendship between them. Though the reading here is easy, Kleitsch neatly renders the foibles of both kids and adults. Some of the cartoon-like b&w drawings show Ben's fantasy adventures, Ö la Calvin and Hobbes. (Fiction. 7-9)