A KITTEN CALLED MOONLIGHT

Waddell out-Waddells himself in the honeyed department with this story of a young girl's rescue of an abandoned kitten. "I'd like my story again," Charlotte says to her mother, and her mother tells her the story, with liberal editorial comment from the little girl. Returning home from a party on a stormy night, young Charlotte sees something dart through the dark streets of her port town. Her mother bundles Charlotte into the house before she can go after whatever it is. Late that night, her mother finds her at a bay window searching the rainy night for evidence of whatever she had seen earlier. Charlotte knows there is something down by the sea: "Her mommy didn't believe there was. But she thought for a minute and said, 'We'll take a look to make sure.' " Out they troop and just before they are about to abandon the search, they discover a frail white kitten at the end of a breakwater. Saved. This is pretty flimsy stuff, as either a favorite story or as a testament to family storytelling, but few can rival Waddell when it comes to embalming a story in coziness or draping it with nostalgia, even this storm-wracked night and doubting mother. Here he has been aided and abetted by the soft-focus chalk pastel artwork, which emits beatitude and patience like radioactive substances, and cat lovers everywhere will swoon. (Picture book 3-6)