A Holiday Year

In Ned's family, a series of incidents, all revolving around various holidays, parallel the symbols of each season. A nerdy cousin gives Ned a scare on Halloween. A turkey gets a last-minute reprieve from death and makes the whole family give thanks. A father passes along his power in a family-owned business to his sons on Christmas Eve. Ned finds that love is a fickle, flighty business on Valentine's Day. On Easter, his younger sister almost dies and then lives, in time to go to her friend's house for Passover. And Ned learns the power of independent thinking on the Fourth of July. The forced reality of the parallelisms imposes on the solid flow of the narrative and on some fine characterizations. Ned and his family are a likable bunch who probably would have borne up to scrutiny all year 'round. Ages 10-14. (May)