Old Friends

With the understated humor of his George and Martha books, James Marshall's The Guest (1975), a tale of two mismatched creatures (Mona, a moose, and Maurice, a snail) who become fast friends, will be welcomed back by the author/ artist's many followers. A tender tale told in Marshall's uniquely dry style in a pink, yellow and spring-green palette. (Houghton, $15 48p ages 4-8 ISBN 0-618-12845-X; $4.95 paper -12844-1; Sept.)

Pet Show! by Ezra Jack Keats, first published in 1972, captures a smalltown simplicity amidst an urban landscape, as an African-American boy struggles with the decision of which pet to enter in the neighborhood contest. (Viking, $15.99 40p ages 4-8 ISBN 0-670-03504-1; Sept.)

The inventive story of a mother frog and her mischievous offspring makes a reappearance: Eulalie and the Hopping Head by Caldecott Medallist David Small. When the young frog occupies a doll's head, chaos follows. PW wrote of the original edition, published in 1982, "Small's little book is a frolic, enticingly illustrated by ingenious woodland scenes in pretty shades and witty depictions of the anthropomorphic cast." (FSG, $16 32p ages 5-up ISBN 0-374-32230-9; $5.95 paper -42202-8; Sept.)

Edith knits a "fine, woolly muffler" for Little Bear in Dare Wright's 1966 A Gift from the Lonely Doll, another of the Lonely Doll titles being reissued. Wright's signature b&w photographs evoke a voyeuristic feel. (Houghton, $16 64p ages 4-8 ISBN 0-618-07181-4; paper $6.95 -07182-2; Sept.)

The confectionery cumulative tale, The Gingerbread Man (1963) by Bonnie and Bill Rutherford, returns; those who grew up with these classic illustrations will welcome them back, but the artwork is timeless enough to please a new generation of fans as well. (Golden, $9.95 32p ages 3-6 ISBN 0-307-10681-0; Sept.)

Kids learn to greet their fears with a hearty howdy-do in A World Full of Monsters (1986) by John Troy McQueen, illus. by Marc Brown. Brown's humorous illustrations portray monsters as local firefighters, farmers and ballerinas. "When you saw one, you just said, 'Hi, Monster,' and kept on walking." (HarperCollins, $15.95 32p ages 4-up ISBN 0-06-029769-7; Sept.)

N.M. Bodecker's elegant illustrations never go out of style, as Sylvester the Mouse with the Musical Ear by Adelaide Hall, originally published in 1961, testifies. Here, an enlarged trim size showcases the tale of an uprooted country mouse who must find a new home when his grassy meadow with its "lovely sounds" is mowed down to make way for a highway. Luckily a music shop in the city provides an appealing alternative. (Golden, $14.99 32p ages 4-up ISBN 0-307-20204-6; Sept.)

Abridged and illustrated by Inga Moore, E. Nesbit's The Book of Beasts, originally published in 1900, makes a handsome picture-book edition. A boy king, fascinated by the Palace library, unwittingly unlocks a magical world lying dormant between the covers of a book. But in the process, he also releases a fire-breathing Red Dragon. Rendered in ink, oil pastels and oil paint, Moore's stunning illustrations spill over with a humor that also pervades in the text (e.g., "Master Lionel, dear, they've come to fetch you to go and be king," reads Nurse's thought bubble on the first page). (Candlewick, $16.99 64p ages 5-up ISBN 0-7636-1579-X; Nov.)

And, the book from which it sprung, The Book of Dragons, which includes eight dragon stories originally published in The Strand magazine (according to an afterword), is available once more with H.R. Millar's original b&w illustrations and an otherworldly new cover by Caldecott Medal—winner Paul O. Zelinsky. (SeaStar/Glassman, $14.95 256p ages 8-12 ISBN 1-58717-105-8; paper $9.95 -106-6; Oct.)

With poetic language and detailed photographs, Round Buildings, Square Buildings & Buildings that Wiggle Like a Fish (1988) by Philip M. Isaacson makes the human-made seem positively organic. He describes the Taj Mahal as "made of marble the color of cream," a stone church "like an old monk gathered up in his robes" and windows as "pathways to the spirit of a building." (Random, $19.95 124p ages 12-up ISBN 0-394-89382-4; Sept.)

Move Over, Guinness

In the Scholastic Book of World Records 2002 by Jennifer Corr Morse readers can find out about more than 300 record-setters, such as what country consumes the most chocolate, which animal spends an average of 22 hours snoozing in a tree and what turned a teddy bear into the "world's most valuable" (a Steiff teddy bear dressed in Louis Vuitton clothes that went for nearly $200,000 at auction). Color photos and comparative bar graphs on every page plus a section on records held by each of the 50 states make this a real winner. (Scholastic Reference, $9.95 paper 320p ages 8-up ISBN 0-439-31398-8; Nov.)

Elephant Homage

Biologist Ian Redmond pays tribute to the pachyderm in The Elephant Book, with breathtaking photos of the African landscape. Divided into sections such as "The Architect of Africa," "Trunks and Tusks" and "Peaceful Coexistence," and peppered with quotes from the likes of David Attenborough and Jane Goodall, the book seeks to stop the ivory trade and eliminate poaching. Half the royalties go to the Elefriends Campaign, an elephant protection group based in London. (Candlewick, $17.99 48p ages 8-12 ISBN 0-7636-1634-6; Sept.)

Each ivory colored spread in Elephant Elephant: A Book of Opposites by Francesco Pittau and Bernadette Gervais features a pair of antonyms alongside the illustrative animals. "Big" and "Small," "Wide" and "Narrow" are clear, while the spreads for "Left" and "Right" (an elephant split down the middle shows sides) plus "Plugged" and "Unplugged" (an elephant-shaped water cooler with a cork in its behind sits next to an uncorked creature flooding the floor) exhibit a more sophisticated flair. (Abrams, $17.95 80p ages 3-5 ISBN 0-8109-3699-2; Sept.)

Freeing Fears

Cuddly animal characters lay it on the line in the opening note of The Hope Tree: Kids Talk About Breast Cancer by Laura Numeroff and Dr. Wendy Harpham, illus. by David McPhail: "Once a week we play games and talk about movies, our families, sports, school, books, and, oh yeah, our moms' cancer." Drawing on actual accounts, the authors create a fictional support group, which addresses 10 topics familiar to families dealing with the disease. Originally published in 1999 with limited distribution, this paper-over-board edition will benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. A comforting and compassionate volume. (S&S, $12 32p ages 5-8 ISBN 0-689-84526-X; Sept.)

The It's OK! series by Beth Robbins, illus. by Jon Stuart, addresses children's common anxieties. In Tom's Afraid of the Dark!, for instance, the titular kitten can't sleep because he thinks there are monsters in his room. His parents assuage his fears, and the computer-generated artwork creates a nearly 3-D quality. Other titles in the series include: Tom's First Day at School; Tom's New Haircut; Tom, Ally, and the Baby-Sitter; Tom, Ally, and the New Baby; and Tom and Ally Visit the Doctor!(DK, $12.95 each 32p ages 2-5 paper $3.95 each Dark ISBN 0-7894-7421-1; paper -7420-4; School -7423-9; paper -7422-0; Haircut -7425-5; paper -7424-7; Baby-Sitter -7427-1; paper -7426-3; New Baby -7431-X; paper -7430-1; Doctor -7429-8; paper -7428-X; Sept.)

Story Collections

Old-fashioned, often broken typeface and Arthur Rackham's gloriously reproduced original artwork accompany 22 stories in a new edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, originally published in 1909. A sepia-toned illustration for "Red Riding Hood" shows the cloaked girl meeting the bristly wolf, dwarfed by endlessly tall, bare trees. A caption in "The Bremen Town Musicians" recalls the bygone era: "They came upon a Cat, sitting in the road, with a face as long as a wet week." (SeaStar/Glassman, $19.95 160p all ages ISBN 1-58717-092-2; Sept.)

Gennady Spirin's delicate watercolor-and-colored-pencil illustrations conjure the magical elements in a half dozen stories by Hans Christian Andersen, Little Mermaids and Ugly Ducklings: Favorite Fairy Tales. A foreword describes how Danish-born Andersen was inspired, through his travels, to create his tales; included here are The Princess and the Pea; Thumbelina; The Nightingale and The Steadfast Tin Soldier as well as the those referenced in the title. (Chronicle, $19.95 60p all ages ISBN 0-8118-1954-X; Oct.)

For Harry Potter fans who have seen the movie and are now awaiting book five, editor Jennifer Schwamm Willis excerpts the work of other science-fiction and fantasy masters, among them, Ursula K. LeGuin, C.S. Lewis and T.H. White, as well as authors of more earthbound matters, such as Roald Dahl and Frances Hodgson Burnett in Wizards: Stories of Magic, Mischief and Mayhem. (Thunder's Mouth Press, [PGW, dist.], $16.95 paper 352p all ages ISBN 1-56025-320-7; Oct.)

Handsomely designed as an oversize gift edition, The Jump at the Sun Treasury: An African American Picture Book Collection features eight complete stories, including These Hands by Hope Lynne Price, illus. by Bryan Collier, and Alvin Ailey by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illus. by Brian Pinkney. An excerpted review introduces each piece. Brief biographies of the authors and illustrators appear on the dust jacket. (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun, $15.99 208p ages 4-up ISBN 0-7868-0754-7; Sept.)

A comprehensive collection of cunning, corruption and ruthless conniving, The Book of Pirates, edited and illustrated by Michael Hague, runs the gamut from a selection from Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" to Frank Stockton's "The Reformed Pirate" and W.B. Whall's "The Female Smuggler." (HarperCollins, $19.95 160p all ages ISBN 0-688-14003-3; Oct.)

Some may now be familiar with Yale University professor Harold Bloom's controversial attitude toward children's books, made clear in the introduction to his Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages. After asserting that, "Most of what is now commercially offered as children's literature would be inadequate fare for any reader of any age at any time," he circumscribes his collection of 41 stories and 83 poems, organized by the four seasons, to mostly dead white males (Tolstoy and Twain, Shakespeare and Shelley, etc.—Wharton and Rossetti are among the few exceptions). (S&S/Scribner, $27.50 576p all ages ISBN 0-684-86873-3; Oct.)