PANCAKES -- PARIS

Here's a story that will help convey even to five to seven year olds something of what the war has meant to children like themselves. And yet it does it without losing the perspective of a sense of adventure and discovery. It is a story of a French family, shaken but valiant, after years of disaster. A box of American pancake flour given to ten-year old Charles, who is ""head of the house"", sends the boy to the American Embassy for someone to translate the directions so that he can have the pancakes as a Mardi-Gras surprise for his mother and sisters. Of course the American soldiers come through with a big spread, so a happy ending compensates for the real sense of privation and suffering, not over-sentimentalized. Good type face for third graders to read to themselves. Younger children will enjoy the story too. Sorry- we haven't seen the pictures yet.