THE NEW FIRE ENGINE

Fire engines are popular with small boys, and this is a friendly small town story about the volunteer fire department, the new engine of which they were so proud, and the successive failures to coordinate all the factors necessary to get to the fire on time to do the job. The moral is not too obvious, and the story -- with dramatic pictures, in wash and in color on practically every page -- carries itself almost without benefit of a text that the picture book age will understand, and the beginning readers can read to themselves.