STONE MEN

Old Isaac, a peddler with a reputation for being a little odd, pushes his cart without even a donkey for company, talking only to stone figures he builds on his way from village to village. But when he overhears the czar's soldiers planning to attack Bruria and can't wake the villagers (weary from their Passover preparations), he quickly builds a row of stone men that, in the dim light of dawn, frighten the soldiers away. Weiss draws her audience into the story by having a grandmother tell it as her own childhood experience. Using colored-pencil-and- pastels, she sets her expressively stylized figures on bare, almost treeless plains pulsing with the browns and greens of early spring, under the subtly glowing purples and blues of a changing sky. The terror—never so easy to foil—is omitted; but the tale of loner-turned-hero is appealing; the introduction to the setting is appropriate for its audience; and the beautifully composed illustrations are truly lovely. (Picture book. 4-8)