Dear Fred

Grace, a young mouse, has moved from Australia to the United States with her mother, leaving her half brother, Fred, behind. As she tells him in this epistolary picture book--Rodell's first--she misses him, remembers their games fondly and can't wait until his Christmas visit. Clearly well-intentioned but bland, this portrayal adds little of note to the growing literature on nontraditional families. The memories Grace writes of--playing Knights and Dragons with Fred, making mudpies together, incurring his anger when she breaks a toy--are not rendered with any particular staying power or with any attention to the different geographical settings, and they fail to imbue the siblings' relationships with any distinguishing poignancy or depth. Nor is ``Grace's'' letter always convincing--several passages are baldly meant to convey information to the reader rather than to Fred (``I never thought of you as my half brother, even though you had a different dad''); and the only explanation for the siblings' separation (``That's the kind of thing that happens in complicated families like ours'') is perfunctory and unlikely to reassure. Gamble's cartoonish mice have a pop-eyed geniality but limited expressivess; like the text, they are pleasant but not special. Ages 4-7. (Mar.)