MARIA

An unemphatic story makes a quiet point when Maria, whose parents seem to be quite poor, receives an heirloom doll in the mail. It had been her great grandmother's and it is much too good to touch. Maria can only look at it when it is placed out of reach in a plastic ball. However, as her birthday approaches, the doll disappears, and on her birthday she gets a new pair of shoes, a rotisserie chicken, a c-a-k-e, and a doll to play with... Good values here (as in The Trouble with Terry- a Child Study Association Book Award), somewhere between the sentimental and the practical. Ernest Crichlow's illustrations are sometimes awkward.