WHAT I'LL REMEMBER WHEN I AM A GROWNUP

Worrying about what Dad and his new wife Marilyn are waiting to tell him during his upcoming visit (``nobody ever wants to tell you anything good in person''), Daniel ruminates over what previous events in his life—significant or seemingly insignificant—have turned out to be particularly memorable. In a clear, well-crafted narrative that will give young readers a first taste of the fictive entwining of past and present, the author weaves Daniel's memories, such as his parents laughing over a poker game or quarreling while he sits outside on the curb, into a sensitive picture of a child facing new uncertainties. Not surprisingly, Dad's news is neither a move far away nor another divorce, as Daniel has feared, but a new baby. Mom, Dad, and Marilyn all accept the boy's natural ambivalence with exemplary, if credibility-stretching, sensitivity (a touch inconsistent with those anxious days Dad's given Daniel between hinting at and delivering his news). Krudop (Blue Claws, 1993) provides sober, carefully composed full-color art that sympathetically captures the story's insights. It's a best-case situation, and Daniel, like his parents, is a bit too wise to be true, but the feelings, details, and Daniel's boyish narrative voice are all likably authentic. (Fiction. 6-9)