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From cradle to rave

Recommendation letters for nursery school? That's what it's come to as 4-year-olds battle for slots at prestigious prekindergartens. But what could one possibly say about a preschooler? Herewith, some testimonials that might have slipped from this spring's folders.

Admissions Office
Shady Hill School
Cambridge, MA 02138

Do let me add my own soupcon to what I'm sure is an overflowing folder of superlatives on behalf of Aimee Andouillette. I have shared the seasonal bounty of her parents' table on several amusing evenings at their modest manse on Fayerweather Street. Their poisson d'avril, their supremes de volaille, their Bavarois - I must say, the Andouillettes have little fear of butter (if you've ever met la mere Madeleine, I need not elaborate). I urged Jacques Pepin to replicate some of their delices de table on our PBS show, but he protested that they were beyond him.

Now to the entree. I have sampled Aimee's exquisite tarte aux pommes, which I believe would make Brillat-Savarin hyphenate. A small qualification here. Aimee did not create the tarte herself, but she did peel the apples with a deftness that Alain Ducasse's sous-chefs would envy.

La mere Madeleine informs me that Aimee soon will be progressing to pigs in blankets, which any gourmet will recognize as the culinary training wheels for saucisson en croute. I look forward to dropping by Shady Hill next autumn for what I'm told is your annual ``Budding Bocuse'' fund-raiser for Concord's indigent organic farmers, where I fervently hope to find Aimee wielding a whisk.

Bon appetit,
Julia Child

Admissions Office
The Lower School
Milton Academy
Milton, MA 02186

I like this kid. I like his makeup. I like his work habits. I like what he brings to the clubhouse. (Our ballclub, of course, keeps things in-house.) I look at Poco Equipo, and I see his daddy Malo when he was a prospect down in the Dominican. Fastball, change, exploding slider - everything you look for in a pitcher.

If Manny (Did I say Manny? I meant Malo) hadn't gotten conked by a coconut during that big hurricane of 1979 and lost his location, we'd all be talking about him, not Pedro. (Of course, if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his booty.)

Though I usually don't watch 4-year-olds (I leave that to Mr. Duquette in our front office), I did drop by a pre-T-ball game in Neponset against the Diaper Diamondbacks. I'm telling you, Poco has it all - anticipation, soft hands, quick release.

Of course, until it happens, it's not going to happen. It's not that I'm uncertain. I'm just not certain. But if Poco ever put his glove on the proper hand, we could be looking at the next Nomar.

I'm saying the same thing here but using different words. But our scouts tell me that you need a shortstop who can beat Nobles in that big game that you haven't won since 1918. I guarantee you, this kid is ready now. Better grab him before Steinbrenner does. I'd hate to see Poco in pinstripes.

Play ball,
Jimy Williams

Admissions Office
Brimmer and May School
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

Although I understand that you do not require personal recommendations for your nursery school applicants (and a good thing, too), my old chum Booz Brattle has asked me to compose a few lines on behalf of his daughter Browning. (You may have recognized Booz passim in Couples, one of my juvenilia.)

Of course, Booz wasn't much for belles-lettres, though I did find him asleep once or twice in the library at the Porcellian during our undergraduate days. And I can assure you that Browning derived none of her facility with the written word from Krystle, her father's third wife (I don't have to tell you about Cape Ann; it makes Cheever Country seem like a Mormon enclave).

But Browning's mother, Calpurnia, was the most promising essayist of her day at Radcliffe. I believe that her efforts in freshman (Or should I say freshwoman? Freshperson?) expository writing have been deservedly archived in the Widener stacks.

Calpurnia's early work with the OED flash cards and the bedtime readings from Henry James have clearly paid dividends with Browning. I have browsed through the Crayola Chronicles, which she dashed off during her period as writer-in-residence at the Tender Shepherd day care center, and I must say I detected traces of the early Sylvia Plath. (Perhaps it was Calpurnia's fine hand.) I was particularly struck by Percy, the Pesky Puppy, in which Browning displays a grasp of the mock-heroic that is well beyond her years.

While predicting literary luminaries is a slippery endeavor, I'm quite confident that Browning has the stuff to eclipse her namesake and more. Some Nobel laureates indeed spring full-blown from Zeus's brow.

With pen in hand,
John Updike

Admissions Office
The Park School
Brookline, MA 02445

Please allow me to wave a most enthusiastic baton in the direction of Molto, the son of Signor and Signora Vivace, who have been generous benefactors of the BSO since well before my modest tenure.

I'm told that you are assembling a ``Toy Symphony'' for your nursery school, which no doubt will include more than a few child prodigies. I must tell you that young Molto would make an incomparable first violin. (I would take him now, but our musicians' union would rise up in cacophony.)

You may wonder how Molto's gifts would be so apparent at 4, but Heifetz was a master as soon as he could lift a Stradivarius, and Midori was zipping through the Kreutzer while she was still soiling her nappy. While it may be premature to place Molto in their company (his fingering needs a few more weeks), I must confess that I see in him the mark of genius.

At the Vivaces' suggestion - not that I needed prodding - I sat in on a recent Suzuki recital in West Newton. And there, amid the screech and squawk of beginners sawing away at Sarasate, soared passages of passion and polish that only could have emanated from Molto. I humbly commend him to your attention, and I look forward to coming out of retirement one day to conduct Molto as he plays both violins in Bach's concerto in D minor.

Con brio,
Seiji Ozawa

Admissions Office
Buckingham Browne & Nichols School
Cambridge, MA 02138

My old confrere Fritz Bauhaus suggests that I sketch a broad line or two in support of his son Berti, who I believe is an applicant (supplicant is a more apt term, I might surmise) for your Beginners' school.

I am informed that while still a toddler, Berti had already replicated Frank Gehry's museum in Bilbao on a chalkboard, with even more iconoclastic elements. I must admit, the work I've glimpsed makes my International Place design indeed look like primitive chess pieces.

At a recent evening to celebrate the proposed adaptive reuse of the Opera House as a cybercafe, Berti clicked together from Legos a whimsical yet workable city block that might have elicited urban rhapsodies from Jane Jacobs.

The Boston Society of Architects has already awarded Berti one of its rare ``presumptive memberships.'' And my colleague Joan Goody, who knows from buttresses, confessed that when she dropped by the Bauhaus home in Lexington to see what the young man could do with Lincoln Logs, she quickly threw up her hands. ``I know when I'm overmatched,'' she conceded.

I realize that you must be chockablock with the gifted offspring of the most creative minds from CBT, Perry Dean, and the rest of the shops hereabouts. But I urge you to hand Berti a pencil and put him on your boards forthwith. I assure you that he'll dash off something astonishing while the rest of the kiddos are at potty break.

Vertically yours,
Philip Johnson

Admissions Office
Tenacre Country Day School
Wellesley, MA 02181

Dr. and Mrs. Grand-Jete have asked me if I might partner (in a sense) their daughter Sylphide in her bid to join her fellow aspirants at your pre-kindergarten barre.

Our Mother Ginger, who has gathered more than a few generations of polichinelles beneath her capacious skirts at The Nutcracker (I trust I need not remind you which Nutcracker), informed me that Sylphide was easily the most precocious of her brood.

While she was clearly the cause of what we jokingly refer to as the ``20-car pileup'' at last year's infamous Sunday matinee at the Wang, I can assure you that it was a result of Sylphide's exuberance, not her misdirection. Gelsey Kirkland had her slapstick moments, too, may I remind you.

Even if the Grand-Jetes had not underwritten our new Nanny Annex on Clarendon Street, I can say without hesitation that Sylphide would be on the fast track to our corps de ballet. (By the way, does the capital campaign for your long-overdue performance center need a six-figure infusion, or is that merely a backstage rumor?)

While I hesitate to predict that Sylphide will soon displace Jennifer Gelfand as the Boston Ballet's principal dancer (although, goodness knows, we're in the market. What I wouldn't give for another Soviet diaspora!), I can say with the utmost certainty that Mlle. Grand-Jete will be promoted to candy cane before the next festive season.

Toujours en pointe,
Anna-Marie Holmes