THE LIGHTEY CLUB
By
Three young sisters--Henny, Alex, and Celia Rubin--are sent to stay with their grandparents for six weeks one summer. They are not looking forward to it--Grandfather is silent and hard to talk to, and Grandmother plans every moment of every day with various ""enriching activities."" To fight their boredom, they form the Lightey Club, at which Henny, the eldest sister, tells stories about Lightey the lightning bug and his friends, all of whom, the girls are sure, live in the lush garden behind their grandparents' house. The story of the girls' summer is interspersed with stories about Lightey and his world. Unfortunately, the bug tales are far less appealing than the growth and changes that the girls experience as they come to understand their grandparents. In the last half, as the action picks up, the bug stories appear more often and become more intrusive. Although Lightey's adventures reflect the feelings and activities of the girls, the two worlds have not been successfully linked. A gentle story, but flow-moving and fragmented.