Ten Mondays for Lots of Boxes. Sue Ann Alderson. Illustrated by Caddie T'Kenye. Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 1995. 32pp, paper, $6.95. ISBN: 0-921870-32-9. Preschool - Grade 3 / Ages 4 - 7. Review by A. Edwardsson. */4

excerpt:

ON THE THIRD MONDAY, the first thing Lots of Boxes did after he moved was call up Easy as Pie. ``We're still friends," said Lots of Boxes. ``Now we're telephone friends." ``Always will be," said Easy as Pie. Lots of Boxes felt better. Now all he needed was a face-to-face friend, one with the right sort of name.

He went for a walk on the beach near his house. He walked out to the edge of the crabbing dock. A girl was pulling in her crabtrap, hand-over-hand. Lots of Boxes helped her, hand-over-hand. At the bottom of the trap, two small brown crabs wrestled. ``Want to toss one back?" asked the girl. She showed him how, behind the claws, to thumb-and-finger round the middle. They tossed them back together.

``What's your name?" asked Lots of Boxes. ``Sky Climber," said the girl. It was the right sort of name . . . .

ON THE FIFTH MONDAY, Lots of Boxes made a Thronk from his blue playdough and some sticks. He set it on the lawn between the plum trees to see what it would catch.

A Wandering Blue-Eyed Glumfy came. He shied at the Thronk; he bellied up to the Thronk; he sniffed the Thronk all over.

Then the Glumfy wagged his tail and ever so gently picked the Thronk up in his mouth. Squashes galoshes! How that Wandering Blue-Eyed Glumfy did run CIRCLES on that lawn. He looked about to take off and FLY with that zesty Thronk held ever so gently in his mouth."

This children's book, the fourteenth by author Sue Ann Alderson (Ida and the Wool Smugglers), is a disappointment. The strange title refers to the story's format -- we follow young Lots of Boxes (self-named for his love of boxes) through ten Mondays' worth of moving and settling in a new neighbourhood.