Don't Call Me Toad!

Shura displays still another talent with her new novel, different from The Search for Grissi and other award-winning stories. This is a fine, suspenseful tale told by Janie Potter, 11, who lives in Riverton, Neb. A new girl, Dinah Dobbins, arrives in town and asks Janie if she has seen Dinah's little stepbrother ""Blitzen.'' Janie hasn't, so the stranger calls her a toad and runs off. Later the girls cooperate, in spite of mutual resentments, when they try to find the small boy who has disappeared. Janie and Dinah finally track him into a tunnel and a trap set by thieves who have cached a fortune there, a development leading to a grand surprise. Rogers's graphics heighten the atmosphere sustained in the well-told story. Ages 9-up. (April)