LEAF MAGIC

Running home through the autumn woods, Michael wishes for a dog; but what he gets instead is a giant orange leaf which follows him everywhere. Michael can't get rid of it but, at his request, a whiskery, wise old beachcomber named Fish and Chips traps the leaf in a trunk. (His fee? "Whistle a sea chanty for me. Whistle it into this bottle and I'll be able to use it again sometime.") But Michael, oddly lonely, has second thoughts. . . returns for the leaf. . . whereupon it jumps from the trunk "a big orange dog with a whisking tail." ("Don't thank me," says Fish and Chips. "You did it all yourself by coming back for the leaf. That's the way with magic.") Frail whimsey, with a pseudopoint—and weak, washed-out pictures to match.