MY ISLAND GRANDMA

My Island Grandma is a new-fashioned grandmother who ""has strong hands that hold me tight and safe in the cool deep water while I learn to swim,"" Who takes the little-girl narrator blueberry-picking (""I pretend that I am a little bear, just like the story Grandma read to me"") and takes her sailing (""We look up in the sky and find special shapes in the clouds""); who shows her a nest of eggs about to hatch (""that's the blood that comes with new life"") and shows her ""star pictures"" in the sky. The wonderment is, indeed, lightened with humor (""Speak English,"" Abbey retorts to a recital of constellations) but the whole is never more than a model experience composed of familiar ingredients--and, alas, unattractively pictured.