EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT!

This latest picture-book declaration that girls can be anything has best friends Herbie and Patty starting kindergarten, and Herbie soon joining forces with the other boys who play airplane and only allow Patty to be stewardess. Patty responds in kind, announcing to Herbie on a later occasion that if only boys can be pilots then only girls can bake cookies. Patty's clever ploy brings Herbie round, but it doesn't make a story out of a now well-broadcast argument. (And even as object lessons go, does sexual equality require that we teach girls as well as boys to play at being bombers--who, if crossed, will ""bomb your crummy plane to bits""?)