Clams All Year

Dedicated to her late grandfather, Cocca-Leffler's (What a Pest!) heartfelt story celebrates what is evidently a cherished childhood memory. Sun-drenched gouache and colored-pencil illustrations with the limpidity of watercolors set a welcoming seaside scene as the genial narrator explains how she, her siblings and cousins spend summers together in ""a large, rambling house on the ocean in New England."" At sunrise on three consecutive mornings, the sleepy children accompany Grandpa to the beach, where they dig unsuccessfully for clams. But on the fourth morning, after a big storm has kept them awake half the night, the youngsters and Grandpa discover a ""bumper crop"" of clams, so many, in fact, that they run out of containers, and it takes the whole family all day to clean them. They freeze some and serve them at Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve dinners, for summertime pleasures ""all year."" While some of the particulars in Cocca-Leffler's buoyant illustrations (e.g., shirts with peace signs or flower-power patterns) invoke a 1960s setting, this simply told tale of a close-knit family has a timeless, understated warmth. Ages 3-7. (May)