VALLEY OF ANIMALS

Elma Williams is an author of thrillers and romances. She is also an unconditional animal lover, and she 'has written the animal book to end all, animal books. Her valley of animals is the blue-green valley of Pant Glas in mid-Wales, where she is mistress of a burgeoning community, each member of which is characterized (and personalized) here. There is Niall, wise head of the goat train, Nada, the golden retriever, and Bracken and Sheena, younger generation, and Snip, another type of dog entirely; there is Chita the Siamese and her enemy Panda, and Jane, the sole sheep in the household. Comedy abounds in the arrangements of the poultry menage, lorded over by Pewter and Archibald, in turn henpecked by the redoubtable if dowdy Fanny. But tragedy has touched Pant Glas too: the beautiful chestnut filly born to Bess was ridden too early by unknown vandals and died, an agonized death. Taken altogether, though, the book is alive with animals and progeny--more animals than you can shake a stick at, and Miss Williams seems to thrive along with her pets. For avid animal lovers, Elma's ark will have an appeal.