The Brother's Promise (Albert Whitman Prairie Books)

Ages 4-6. In this traditional Jewish tale, a father dies and leaves his farm to his two sons, who share the farm and look after each other, despite their very different lifestyles--Yankle is a happily married family man, and Josef is a loner who spends his time reading religious books. When a drought threatens the farm, the brothers independently decide that the other needs whatever food has been saved. In a comic episode, the duo go back and forth delivering food and wondering why they are each winding up with more instead of less. Finally, they run into each other and, in a happy moment of realization, remember their father's words: "When a brother helps a brother, the angels in heaven weep tears of joy." This tells the same story as does Neil Waldman's recent The Two Brothers (1997), which has a soft-toned Jerusalem setting; Harber's tale is located in eastern Europe. Here, the pictures are vigorous both in color and in style of drawing. There's lots of movement in the art, and the pictures capture the story's humor and the worry that comes with farming life.