TORTOISE BY CANDLELIGHT

The Beans have a sort of slipshod, shambling existence on a houseboat; their mother is ""absent""; their grandmother is a rather rigid woman; their father, Martin, writes occasionally and drinks more frequently; and the three children are on their own. Alice, the oldest, is growing up and away so that it is Emmie, 14, who looks out for the younger Oliver, 8, with an intense protective loyalty. These children are waifs in a world they never made and there is that wistful, terrible loss of innocence when illusions are exposed to an abrasive reality....It is a small book, acute, discreet and tender; it is also written with warm care and considerable taste -- all qualities too easily overlooked.