SOMETIMES IT HAPPENS

Victor wants to be a hero when he grows up--and this is mostly lots and lots of talk about it. His sisters and his brother naturally opt for practical occupations; and Victor, naturally, is advised to do likewise (i.e., ""You have to make a living""). Except by his mother, who first confesses that she once wanted to be a movie star--and only then drives the lesson home: she liked being a secretary, her parents' choice; and ""sometimes a person who's a secretary or a bus driver or a salesman or a college professor finds all sorts of chances to help people. If he's a real hero he doesn't wait around for something unusual to happen."" So, in the book's one small departure from utter predictability (though it, too, might have been anticipated), Victor imagines himself doing an ordinary good deed--and becoming a public hero in the process. With full-page crayon drawings in Jeschke's usual mocking mode, a hoary fictional situation talked around to an all-win conclusion.