Circles of Round

K-Gr 1—Life in the town of Round is peaceful for the kind, fun-loving Circles. They had "circular ways and lived circular days." One day, a Triangle arrives in town who convinces the Circles that just rolling through life is boring and gets them to to try his Corner Transformer. However, once they become other shapes, they find that all those corners are problematic. They make "tears in their beds and their chairs" and the little ones can't roll to school or play Ring-Around-the-Rosy anymore. They discover that by concentrating very hard, they can return to their former round bliss. The message here is confusing at best. While it is indeed important to be happy with who you are, the idea that change is negative is not a comfortable one. At one point, the little square thinks, "Facing the rest of his life as a Square was unbearable." Changes aren't usually reversible by wishing them away-sometimes learning to cope with them is what's necessary. The illustrations are brightly colored pieces of textured paper formed into various shapes, and there is some interesting play at times with light and shadow, but there is nothing here in either text or illustration to merit a second reading.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ