NAOMI KNOWS IT'S SPRINGTIME

The prolific Kroll's litany of the signs of spring—with most of the lines that caption the double-spread illustrations beginning with the title—is lyrical (``...when the air stops nipping her nose and chin and kisses her cheeks instead...when her [tire] swing holds her in a safe, round hug and she sails and spins in a whirling twirl''), but it's just another evocation of the changing seasons—until, at the end, Naomi overhears a neighbor: ``If only Naomi could see the blue in the sky.'' For the first time, readers are clued into the fact that Naomi's blind. But by the time readers encounter Mrs. Jensen's unneeded pity, the simple text and Kastner's lovely impressionistic paintings have conveyed Naomi's joy in the season's wealth of other sensations and experiences, summed up in her smiling response: ``If only Mrs. Jensen could see the rainbow in my mind!'' Nice. (Picture book. 4-8)