JOSIE SMITH AND EILEEN
By
...even if Eileen was horrible sometimes, she was still Josie Smith's best friend,"" concludes this fourth book about a little girl who lives with her mother in an English village. In three long chapters, Josie inadvertently ends by having an impromptu picnic birthday after her mother says they can't afford a party; weathers homesickness when she's left for two nights with Eileen, who has a notably unsympathetic mother; and is unexpectedly given a real bride's bouquet at the end of a day she's spent making costumes and bunches of dandelions in emulation of a neighborhood wedding in which Eileen is taking part. Josie's small troubles and the complications resulting from her imaginative efforts to make up for ""Mom's"" lack of time and money invariably ring true; the lively dialogue, spiced with the petty insults normal children exchange, and the parents' failure to understand that good intentions often have mischievous results are perfectly believable. Simply told, unusually honest, and entirely childlike, fine for independent reading or for sharing with younger children, Josie continues to be a winner.