A wonderful book by a favorite author, An Episode of Sparrows is set amid the privations and hardships of postwar London. When two poor children "steal" a bit of a defunct churchyard to make a garden, the neighbors get involved for good and ill. As with all Miss Godden's books, this is a tender, emotionally true, utterly unsentimental book and portrait of a place and time, suitable for readers from 10 to 15.  (GBR688, $18.95)