The Never-Ending Greenness

Waldman (The Golden City: Jerusalem's 3,000 Years) may have bit off a little more than he can chew with this ambitious picture book. The story opens in pre-WWII Vilna, joyfully pictured in bright, candy-like colors applied in Waldman's characteristic impressionist style. Then ""soldiers"" march into the neighborhood and force everyone ""into a place called the ghetto""; the palette shifts to heavy grays and browns. The narrator and his parents escape to the forest, and by the fourth spread the war ends and the family travels to ""eretz Yisrael,"" where war rages also. The rest of the story is devoted to the boy's dream of planting trees throughout the desolated land and the industriousness with which he realizes his vision. The breakneck opening will be confusing--if not downright overpowering--to children who don't have firm knowledge of the Holocaust (the words ""Jews,"" ""Nazi"" and ""Israel"" appear only in a note). The links between the various episodes, chiefly the narrator's references to the trees of Vilna and to the protective foliage of the forest, are too delicate for the cataclysmic events described. The other possible stumbling block is Waldman's stylized palette--when faces can be partially blue, skies orange or daubed with pink and the hills turquoise, the miracle of green trees blanketing the once parched land seems much less dramatic. A reference to Tu b'Shvat, however, might commend the book to families who observe that holiday. Ages 7-up. (Mar.)