DYNAMITE!

When his brother is thrown into an Army stockade for protesting, 6-year-old Alex resolves to express his resentment with dynamite, His friends Buddy and Kell reluctantly help him steal the sticks, but later change their minds and concentrate on dissuading Alex -- a project that takes them on a sometimes hairy, sometimes amusing chase in a rented car neither can drive. The boys' real dilemma is handled with a light, authentic touch, and Buddy's comfortably colloquial first-person narration is sprinkled with small but telling observations -- about the crazy imperative of not telling on a friend, or (when Kell grumpily answers his mysterious telephone summons) how ""some people can't stand the force of their own curiosity."" If the resolution -- to the story and the problems of protest -- is too neatly achieved when Buddy convinces Alex that he's not helping his brother by dynamiting Army property, the message is so deftly seasoned that it's easy to swallow.