PETER THE WANDERER

Mr. Ardizzone's distinctive style is more effective in these large full-color pictures (there are some black and whites) than in the small dark sketches he has done o often. In color, he creates a short, shaggy boy and an old white-bearded sailor telling their story in simple, spare prose. The three strange men who interfere with Peter's search for the sailor (whose gold key the lad has found) remain anonymously mysterious to the end, adding a curious element. The picaresque fantasy uses reality as a framework, and Mr. Ardizzone builds tension from the beginning; thus the fairy-tale ending -- the bedridden sailor presents Peter with a magic crystal-- weakens the boy's odyssey.