UP THE TRACKS TO GRANDMA'S

From the author and illustrator of In Coal Country (1987, ALA Notable), another look at life in rural America two generations ago. There's a strong whiff of nostalgia here, but it's tempered with bracingly realistic specifics: when the young narrator comes to Grandma's (she literally walks up the rarely used train tracks from town), the two catch a hen for the pot; a black snake snitches eggs in the henhouse; and Grandma gets coal for her own use out of the old mine in her yard. The interest of the quiet story is heightened when Grandma goes away, by train, to care for a daughter with a broken leg and the narrator comes up the tracks every day to tend the hens, winning Grandma's warm thanks when she returns. Allen's soft, rather muted illustrations are simply rendered, yet they effectively convey the affection of these two and the pleasure they share in their surroundings. An agreeable, well-wrought book. (Picture book. 4-8)