FLOOD

 Wholesome family values are served up in this story of one family's survival of the great flood of the Midwest in 1993. Sarajean is as tenacious as her grandmother in her resistance to the rising waters of her beloved Mississippi. When possessions, including Sarajean's dog, are moved to higher ground, her family staunchly ``camps out'' on the second story to weather the storm. When the levee breaks, they are forced to evacuate. In true Laura Ingalls Wilder style, they learn the true meaning of home. This is not high-action disaster drama; it is social commentary via the portrait of an individual family's efforts and contribution within a community. Appropriately dull grays and blues convey the damp, dreary heaviness of the skies and water-soaked landscape in a much more serious take on floods than found in George Ella Lyon's lively Come a Tide (1990). Although the home-is-where-the-heart-is message is heavy-handed, it's also enduring. (Picture book. 5-7)