THE LOST UMBRELLA OF KlM CHU

The first room you enter in Klm Chu's tenement apartment contains only two items: Grandmother's chair and Father's black umbrella, which was presented to him by the ""mayor of Chinatown"" and which contains, in the hollow of its bamboo handle, a miniature scroll awarded him for designing the best dragon in the Chinese New Year parade. That's why Grandmother doesn't want Klm to borrow her father's umbrella, and why she sends the little girl back out to find it when it disappears from the rack at the library. Kim's search takes her on her first El ride and her first trip on the Staten Island ferry--where, lo and behold, a well dressed ""millionaire man"" is clutching a black, bamboo-handled umbrella so oddly that Klm is sure it's her father's. More wonderful yet, she's right, though it turns out that the ""millionaire man""--who is Staten Island borough president, running for mayor, and a little embarrassed by the umbrella frisk the ferryboat captain arranges for Klm--did not steal the umbrella but only bought it from a ""young scamp"" outside the library. Estes makes it an engaging story, far better than the title would suggest--for not only are the time and place and ethnic background charmingly evoked, but Klm herself is a delightful little girl and her search is such a winning demonstration of child logic that it has to end successfully.