DREAM MEADOW

A simple depiction of a woman and her dog going gently into that good night. Jane, an ``old lady'' who ``spends her days in a rocking chair...and sometimes...doesn't know her own daughter,'' dreams of her childhood; at her feet, old Frisky dreams of puppy days when she could ``run without hurting.'' Though the dog ``wants to go on running and running across the grassy meadow faster and faster until she runs straight up into the sky,'' she always returns to Jane, unwilling to leave without her. In one dream spread, the old woman merges into her childhood self, poised to frolic in a flower-dappled meadow; at the end, the two go together as Frisky had wished. Soft color pencils on rough-grained paper give Barnet's first picture-book illustrations an appealingly dreamy, diffuse texture. Though the book teeters dangerously close to clichÇ, children upset by an approaching death will find the tender reassurance here consoling. (Picture Book. 5-8)