Madame Martine

PreS-Gr 2—Madame Martine, who lives in Paris, is very set in her ways. She eats specific meals on specific days, and she's quite sure that climbing the Eiffel Tower is a waste of time. But when she adopts a stray dog who scampers up the steps of the landmark, what can she do but follow? After experiencing the allures of a Parisian evening viewed from on high, Madame Martine is amenable to varying her routine a bit in the future. This is a pleasant, if not especially inventive theme for a picture book. Brannen's plump-figured watercolors are also appealing, but she has attempted daring, vertiginous renderings of the headlong dash up the tower that seem a bit beyond her ability to give them authenticity, and the spreads of Paris lack much detail—a lost opportunity that reinforces the blandness of the plot.—Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Library, NY