MAC AND MARIE AND THE TRAIN TOSS SURPRISE

Recalling her father's childhood, the author of Chita's Christmas Tree (1989) describes him waiting, with his little sister, for a train that will pass their home near Baltimore. Mac dreams of becoming a railroad engineer, but tonight the children have a special reason for anticipation: Uncle Clem, who goes to college, has a summer job in the dining car and has promised to toss them a present from the moving train. Most of the quiet text concerns the children's speculation about what this could be, in the course of which Howard adroitly suggests the happy stability of their family; in the end, the package contains a Florida shell, an entrancing symbol, for the children, of the possibilities represented by the train that passes so close and travels so far. Only in a prefatory comment does Howard note that Mac's ambition in turn-of-the-century America was not realistic, since he was African-American. Carter's mixed-media art has a nice feel for the family's attractive country house and the darkening summer evening; her characterizations are a little bland, but have a pleasing warmth. An attractive vignette. (Picture book. 4-8)