A WEEK IN HAGAR'S WORLD: Israel

A stiff text that reads like a primer and expounds rather than explains is combined -- uncomfortably -- with a group of photos many of which could be of children anywhere, few of which convey a sense of Hagar as an individual. The result is neither a coherent picture of life on a kibbutz nor acquaintance with a particular child. Hagar goes to school on Sunday and learns ""to read and to write Hebrew;"" much later, on Friday, she lights the Sabbath candles -- but these circumstances are not related to one another or to the fact that she and the other Israelis are Jewish, a fact which is never mentioned. Moreover, a kibbutz is simply a ""big farm"" where ""each family is part of one big family;"" much later, again, mention is made of the apportionment of work, of the housing of children in a separate residence -- but without any reference to the rationale of either policy. The book not only fails to instruct or entertain, it actually perplexes.