THE STORYTELLER

At ten, Rama is hard pressed looking after four younger sibs in the street where there's little to do. Her family is living in the city while Father is in the hospital, her mother works nights, and Rama misses her real home at Cochiti Pueblo and her grandparents' traditional tales. Then she makes friends with Miss Lottie, the lonely old woman upstairs who reminds her of her grandparents, and shows her her most precious possession—a storyteller doll with five children in her lap—explaining how Grandfather tells stories. Soon Miss Lottie and Rama, plus other neighborhood children, are sharing many kinds of stories— fingerplays, memories, and newly invented ones—out on the stoop; and when at last Rama's family returns to Cochiti, she leaves the doll with her new friend. Weisman's amiable story is effectively illustrated in the intense colors of the Southwest. Bradley, a Santa Fe-based Chippewa, places his sturdy, primitive forms in carefully organized compositions that draw the characters warmly together. Instructive and appealing. Note about storyteller dolls. (Picture book. 4-8)