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TWO SPECIAL CARDS by Sonia O. & Leigh Dean Lisker

TWO SPECIAL CARDS

By

Pub Date: Oct. 4th, 1976
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Although divorced and separated Mommies and Daddies have appeared in a number of picture books, little Hazel Carter's frantic announcement that ""I'm"" getting a divorce ushers in the most explicit treatment of the break-up we've seen at this level. It's not necessarily a truthful one, however. For after suffering through the trauma of breakfast-table quarrels and watching from the bedroom door as Daddy leaves with his suitcase (""Good-bye. I'll call the children""), Hazel and her younger brother Billy go for their first week-end visit to Daddy and are delighted by their own ""bright red, white and blue room"" with bunk beds, ""special"" pancakes shaped like rabbits and ducks for breakfast, and--on their return home--by one of Mom's chocolate cakes and a birthday celebration for their pet dog. Hazel's family, modishly slim, doe-eyed and bland, are put forth as a reassuring model, but kids who find those first visits don't go this smoothly, or whose parents are less adept at planning ""special"" surprises, might find that Hazel's abbreviated ride on the emotional roller coaster leaves them up in the air. For desperate parents, the merit is that this exists at all.