cover image Old Friends

Old Friends

Lynne Barasch. Frances Foster Books, $16 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-374-35611-8

Reincarnation gives the theme of friendship a puzzling spin in Barasch's (Rodney's Inside Story) tale about Henrietta, an old woman who has outlived all her peers, including Anna, her best friend since childhood. One day Henrietta encounters a small white dog and senses it is speaking to her. That night she dreams that she and Anna are youngsters playing with a china dog that resembles this one. Henrietta then ""knew the dog was Anna,"" and the two ""found in each other the little girls they had been so long ago."" The pair begins daily walks, but Henrietta grows increasingly fatigued. Soon the old woman has yet another dream in which a new china dog (this one black) appears. Here the perspective suddenly shifts from Henrietta to the dogwalker, wondering why Henrietta has ceased her daily walks: ""She was never to know."" After a while a black dog (the one from the dream) emerges from Henrietta's house and seems to know the white dog, ""almost as if they were old friends."" Adults may make the connection that Henrietta has died and come back as the black dog, but this is a stretch for the picture book crowd. Spare and sketchy watercolors fail to add much-needed life to this insipid story which, especially for children who have lost a loved one, may provoke more unsettling questions than it answers. Ages 5-up. (Apr.)