GOOD CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Wow! I’m impressed! While on my routine odyssey through the Sunday paper, as is somewhat usual, I found that turning to a new page brought me face-to-face with yet another saturnine story of bad news. But as I perused the Book Review section, I flipped to a series of reviews titled “Children’s Bookshelf” by Mark Harris (Book Review, Feb. 26). Harris wrote a wonderful summary of five children’s books and showed how the notable themes of each story go together, leaving the reader with only one thought in mind--”Our children need to be exposed to more educational books like these!”

I read about the books now available for children with a hint of envy. We adults are constantly being blessed with the privilege of reading, and hearing, about AIDS, gun control, terrorism, etc., etc. Considering how readily our children are exposed to our Draconian world, these are stories I certainly wouldn’t want my children to grow up reading and worrying about. I found Harris’ review to be a reminder that there still are authors who almost miraculously continue to write jovial, hate-free stories for our children. Wouldn’t it be great if we could one day pick up a newspaper and read nothing but stories of an Elysian quality? Well, next time don’t skip over the children’s reviews. It’s important to keep up with what our children are reading, and who knows, we may even learn something from the simple goodness of children’s books.

CLARA KIRSNER

CULVER CITY