MARTIN BUTTERFIELD

Mild naughty doings of the Henry Aldrich variety, complete with stuffy lawyer father and softly sighing mother. Martin Butterfield, fresh from an undistinguished career in the fourth grade, punctuates his summer with enterprising little schemes -- outwitting father, catching a snake in a clothes basket, selling magazines by pretending family poverty, cheating his pal Sparky out of a trip to Washington, and general monkey shines. However, the author is more amused at the story than the reader -- there is too much wheezing and sighing from the father, too much maternal head-shaking. Amusing enough but no substitute for Mark Twain or even the recent Herbert.