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THE TRUMPE T OF THE SWAN, by E. B. White, Harpe1· & Row. 210 pages. $4.50.

EVERYONE who enjoyed "Charlotte 's Web" and "Stuart Little" - and they must number multitudes across the world - will delight. in E. B. White's new book about Louis, tµe trumpeter swan born without a voice. These 210 pages a r a wealth of delight, whimsy, fantasy, humor, each blessed with the grace, . clarity and simplicity of E. B. White's immacula te prose style. We have one quarrel, however, with . the publisher. The dust jacket, and sticker pro,. claiming this to be a 1970 Honor Book in the Childrens Spring Festival discrimina tes against adults. No matter whether you are . aged six, or 16 or 60, the chances are you will find delight in "The Trumpet Of The Swan." Mainers should take special 'delight and pride in knowing that E. B. White wrote this book in Maine, at his home in. Brooklin. The story involves 11-ycar-ol<l Sam B av· er, who, while camping out in Western Canada with his father, discovers a pair of trumpeter swans nesting on a remote lake. Before his astonished eyes, the female hatched her little trumpeter s. One cygnet, Louis, is born without a voice . . . a trumpeter swan without a trump·at! To make up for nature's miistake, voiceless Louis decided he should 1'aarn to read and write, so off he flies to school with his friend Sam. After masteri ng reading and writing with a slate pencil upon a small blackboar d, Louis wings his way home to his Trumpete r Swan family in Red Rocks Lak•a, Montana. Around his long neck he carries his blackboar d and chalk pencil, but no other swans can understan d what he writes. Serena, the beautiful female swan with whom Louis falls in love, especially has no idea of the love in Louis's heart. Be ing dumb, Louis cannot trumpet his love, calling 'Ko-hob! , as a trumpeter swan' should. So Louis' father docides to fly off to Billings, Mon., to rob a music store aud bring home a man-made trumpet for his son. \ , Louis becomes so expert on the manmade trumpet that he gets a. series of jobs, first at a ·camp blowing reveille, mess calls and taps. He next lands a job in the Public Gardens · at Boston, leading the swan boat and blowing tunes and arias on his trumpet. Boston is enthralled ; record · crowds flock to the lake and Louis becomes so great a celebrity that he stays at the Ritz Carlton, where he ord<lrs watercres s sandwiches sent to him by room service. Louis's next engageme nt is at $500 a week, playing at a nightclub in Philadelph ia and living at the zoo. One stormy day a badly buffeted trumpeter swan finds refuge from . the storm by landing on the lake at the zoo. The swan · is Louis' first love, Serena. This time Louis serenades her witn his

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trumpet and ofi tk;y fly together to tana, where Lo uis turns over to his fathe · almost $4,500, eamed from his career as trumpeter swan. The story is beguiling and charming , a White's tales always are, the prose as lucic and clear as the water of a wilderness lake And as· the story of Louis' adventure s unfold it is entrancing ly interlaced with the lore ol wildlife and nature, and with the elfin laugh.' ter and joy which is E . B. White's hallmark.

.Bill Caldwell'

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