The Future-Telling Lady and Other Stories

Action and original plot twists are not the qualities that give these quiet tales their undeniable sparkle; instead, their power derives from the cadences of the storyteller's voice and the shimmering tropical atmosphere with which they are saturated. Exotic-seeming to many northern readers, the texture of life in Jamaica is evoked through matter-of-fact yet effective language: ""He took no notice of noisy birds fluttering in trees, doing peep-peeps, squawk-squawks, coo-coos, or just straight singing."" The storylines are simple and pleasantly predictable: a girl goes almond-picking and encounters ""Cotton-Tree Ghosts,"" the spirits of long-dead white settlers; ""Son-Son Fetches the Mule"" after a struggle between the determined boy and the ""wild, stupid, bad and fool-fool"" animal; Yuuni thinks that ""Magic to Make You Invisible"" will solve all the problems caused by her spoiled younger brother; in ""Banana-Day Trip,"" aspiring rap-rhymer Boy-Don makes a long-anticipated excursion to his grandmother's house, only to come down with an unexpected case of homesickness. ""The Future-Telling Lady"" wears a different color each day of the week and uses folk wisdom and intuition to solve such problems as anorexia and compulsive stealing. The final story, an allegory of racial injustice titled ""Mr. Mongoose and Mrs. Hen,"" serves as a grim and somewhat incongruous epilogue to this otherwise bubbly bevy of tales. Ages 10-up. (Jan.)