DANNY DUNN AND THE SMALLIFYING MACHINE

Handily, Danny's been trying out parachutes and girl-scientist-next-door Irene's been concentrating on insects so that when Professor Bulifinch's Smallifying Machine, accidentally encroached upon, reduces the four of them (friend Joe's along too) to a quarter inch, they're ready to cope with the problem of being on the same level as a bee -- to the extent of sipping clover nectar. Via a butterflight (the steering device: shadows cast over its eye) Danny rejoins the others, then fashions a parachute out of cobweb to rise to newcomer Dr. Grimes' height and catch his attention. The proper switches and and levers reassemble them full size out of computer-stored data, ending a jolting tour of the minisphere that makes everything a matter of relative size. The book, however, is right up to the mark.