JAFTA

``Things are changing in our country,'' so Jafta's father, who has ``been in the city, making money for us, working down a deep hole in the ground,'' can come home. ``He's left a big hole in our lives,'' too, the boy confides, listing important things his father has missed—the harvest, a wedding, the period when the family dog—now full grown—was a pup, a freedom rally. The sepia illustrations for this poignantly simple story are not as showy as Rachel Isadora's watercolors for At the Crossroads (1991), but they have a touching authenticity and a deft interplay between beautifully observed figures, a delicately suggested landscape, and ample white space. It may take an adult to interpret the political content; the only place it's stated that the country is South Africa is in the CIP, but many children may know Jafta from his previous appearances with various publishers and on Reading Rainbow. (Picture book. 3-7)