Paula Fox has demonstrated an almost uncanny insight into young boys in two earlier stories, Maurice's Room and A Likely Place. Now, with equal skill [in How Many Miles to Babylon?], she takes a highly imaginative, lonely Negro boy of "barely 10" through a nightmarish day. James knows what is real—that his father is gone and he is living in a small, shabby room in Brooklyn with three old aunts who are caring for him while his mother is in the hospital. But what James feels is very different—that his mother has gone to Africa to tell people he is a prince and to "fix everything."

One day James walks out of school and goes to the empty house where he acts out his fantasy. He paints his face, dons a feathered headband and a piece of red curtain, lays at his feet the ring he thinks is a sign from his mother, and dances by candlelight in the cold, dark basement. Suddenly three jeering boys appear. Tall, thin Stick, short, plump Blue and small, mean-looking Gino seize the terrified boy and force him to help them in their dog-stealing racket. James tries to run away but fails. He rides for miles on the back of Gino's bike to Coney Island, where he sees the ocean for the first time and is confined with three small dogs in the Fun House. That night the boys return to the empty house and he escapes at last. When he returns home and finds his mother waiting for him, James' fear and his world of pretense are ended.

It is a disturbingly realistic tale, but I wonder if this is indeed a book for children. Perhaps it is for perceptive adults instead, who will appreciate it as a superb study of a child under emotional stress, a story through which runs a strong thread of sadness.