ALL BECAUSE I'M OLDER

This is mostly eight-year-old John's complaint about all the dumb things brother Peter, three years younger, makes him do. Most of the trouble occurs on a trip to the supermarket with Dad, who is also charged with taking baby Stephanie along. Peter's childish spitefulness prompts a similar response in John—and, truth to tell, he doesn't always need the prompting. What with the boys' squabbling, Stephanie crying and reaching and making a mess with the cherries and bananas, John getting blamed even when he's not at fault, and poor Dad becoming more and more harried, it's a relief to everyone when John pops a grocery bag over Stephanie and that shuts her up. The three kids, Stephanie still bagged, are quiet and contented all the way home; the boys are thanked for carrying in the groceries; and in all the good will John finds himself letting Peter play with his parachute. The story is little more than a string of small incidents, but they gather momentum once the shopping trip is under way, and they are loaded with chuckles of sympathetic recognition.