ROSIE AND MICHAEL

Michael and Rosie take turns listing a million reasons (at least it seems like a million reasons) why each is the other's absolute best friend--all interspersed with protests (""just because I sprayed Kool Whip in her sneakers, doesn't mean that Rosie's not my friend"") and elaborate vows (""if Michael told me a secret and people clonked me and bopped me, I wouldn't tell what Michael's secret was""). With her usual acid wit, Viorst pounces on the very occasions when a good friend comes in handy: like being voted Most Horrible Singing Voice in the Class or having someone to call up ""When I cut my head and the blood came gushing out, as soon as the blood stopped gushing."" Still and all, forty pages of such elaboration is an awful lot for anybody, and there are times when only the frenetic Mad magazine detail of the line drawings will revive lagging attention. And Laura Tomei's aged looking children and enthusiastic depiction of, for example, the time when ""I put a worm in his tuna salad sandwich"" are fairly clever examples of that school of intentionally bilious humor which is so popular. Aggressively redundant.