JANEY AND FRIENDS

Janey's friends are Elaine, Mr. Lash, cheeky and Bino (all goats), Tope the dog, Tiger the cat, Little the pig; their accumulation is most of the story Mother's death and Little Janey's cough drive them from the Dust fl Bowl of eastern Colorado (1936), and the maternal grandfather, incommunicado since his daughter's marriage, arranges for the purchase of some farm land in washington. The whole family's crisp and spunky--old Auntie Sam with her cussing, Dad and his brother Stan, and especially Janie; she meets all the neighbors, even the mysterious and irascible old man of the mountain, and so wishes they might all be friends. A forest fire unites them, the old man turns out to be the grandfather (yes really). Slow moving, rural sentimentality.