EDDIE SPAGHETTI

Italian-Albanian-American Eddie is nine in 1940 and these are ten episodes in his very everyday young life. In one he is kept after school to practice missed spelling words and squirms impatiently because he's missing Jack Armstrong on the radio; in another he steals a card of buttons from the dime store just to see if it really is that easy, then has a much harder time sneaking it back after his conscience gets to him; in a third he's petted and scolded after a scissors-throwing fight with his younger brother. The closest approximation of a unifying thread concerns the second-hand piano Eddie acquires early on, the longed-for lessons he finally begins, and his proud performance at the recital that ends the book. By this time the totally eventless early episodes have evolved into somewhat rounder, more personable views of Eddie and his family--but none have the humor, deep-down empathy, or even the plot to rank near the top of this Henry Huggins genre.