A Child's Garden of Lore And Laughter

By Stefan Kanfer

The writer of fairy tales, said J.R.R. Tolkien, "makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter . . . You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside." This year a dozen books invite young readers inside to visit the worlds of animals, machinery and legend, places that can be re-entered as long as the enchantment lasts.

! A masterpiece by Maurice Sendak is rare. A newly discovered tale by Wilhelm Grimm, younger of the Grimm brothers, is unprecedented. The work of collaborators separated by more than 150 years is irresistible. All three converge in Dear Mili (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $16.95), a long-lost Grimm tale in which a mother sends her child off to the forest as war approaches. Mili stumbles upon a safe house where she is sheltered by St. Joseph and her guardian angel. After three days the child is guided home, but in that time 30 years have passed. Mili is unchanged; her mother has dramatically aged. The conclusion is freighted with mystery, amplified by Sendak's floating vistas and romantic palette. Although themes of death and resurrection haunt the narrative, its illustrator removes any chill with fleeting allusions to Mozart, the Seven Dwarfs, unfolding flowers and amiable canines.

The stories of In the Beginning (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; $18.95) are far older than Grimm's. Each concerns the creation of the world, and Virginia Hamilton gives every culture equal time and space. The Hurons speak of a woman who started things by falling from a torn place in the sky. The first man, say the Eskimos, hatched from a pea pod. The ancient Chinese venerated a giant who burst from a vast egg. Barry Moser's illuminations treat these legends with dignity and delicacy, and go on to show dozens of other prime movers, including a feathered serpent, an octopus and Pandora. As the paintings prove, each figure is not only a people's fantasy but also an illustrator's dream.

Fire Came to the Earth People (St. Martin's Press; $9.95) speaks of another kind of legend. The moon goddess Mawu, say the West Africans, wanted to keep fire for herself. The lion, panther, elephant and antelope vainly tried to persuade her to part with the secret. Then the chameleon had an idea. Straw was gathered and given to the tortoise. He sneaked it up to the sacred flame. The glowing embers were gathered under his shell and valorously brought home, safe forever from the jealousy of Mawu. The secret of Susan L. Roth's retelling lies in the strong rhythms of oral history and the stark tints of hand-dyed textiles.

With heavy black lines, elemental colors and vigorous figures, Byron Barton follows the exploits of a futuristic young traveler who says I Want to Be an Astronaut (Crowell; $12.89). All the experiences are cataloged and exhibited: zero gravity, concentrated meals, a space walk, even the building of a factory in orbit. Once upon a time such adventures seemed the stuff of daydreams. This user-friendly manual makes them not only plausible but likely.

No wonder Dinosaur Bob (Harper & Row; $12.89) is dedicated to King Kong. Like his predecessor, this jolly green giant is captured in Africa and packed off to the U.S. There he delights the gaping crowds by playing the trumpet and baseball. Alas, he also disrupts traffic and incurs the wrath of policemen. Here ends the similarity of ape and monster. William Joyce's plot and pictures provide laughter, thrills and, most important, a happy ending. Fair enough. Kong, after all, was a tragic figure; Bob is a comic creature. It was beauty killed the beast; it is whimsy keeps the reptile alive.

News travels swiftly through one insect colony: delicious crystals have been found in a distant country. Eager to please its queen, a group sets out in search of edible treasure. When the sugar is found, each takes one grain and heads back -- except for Two Bad Ants (Houghton Mifflin; $15.95). Their mishaps with a spoon, a toaster, a cup of coffee and a human mouth are the subjects of Chris Van Allsburg's tale, brilliantly illuminated with renderings of a world seen from the underside, as two tiny protagonists scamper through its wonders and terrors on all sixes.

His sister calls him Stinky, his brother does not believe that Philadelphia is the capital of Belgium. Naturally Spinky Sulks (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $13.95). At age 81, William Steig can still use the cartoonist's technique to render the wounds of childhood and the consolations of pouting. Spinky receives entreaties from his mother, lectures from his father and apologies from his siblings. Eventually, of course, he comes around, but only on his terms and his schedule. In youth as in humor, timing is everything. Steig has not forgotten that either.

In lesser hands, it might have been called gimmick literature. But there is a high purpose behind Look! Look! Look! (Greenwillow; $12.95). Regularly, a small window is cut out of a page. Peering through it, readers may see the crown on the Statue of Liberty, or the side of a briefcase or a mysterious red eye. The pages that follow reveal the whole photograph and provide some astonishments. The eye turns out to be rose petals. The briefcase is an elephant's tail. The crown is the center of a carousel wheel. Tana Hoban's pictures tell a double story and serve a dual function: to entertain and to teach the young eye how to see.

Tail Feathers from Mother Goose (Little, Brown; $19.95) skims a famous compilation of nursery rhymes by two Oxonians, Iona Opie and her late husband Peter. Their previous books include superior verses, but no better illustrations. Some 60 prominent artists from Sendak to Nicola Bayley have given stature to such street doggerel as "Once there was a little boy,/ He lived in his skin;/ When he pops out,/ You may pop in" and George Bernard Shaw's effort for the young, presented at age 93: "Dumpitydoodledum big bow wow/ Dumpitydoodledum dandy!" Not exactly Dr. Seuss, but, as young people know, many a satisfying afternoon can be spent with leftovers.

"At least four hundred years from now/ Your tale will still be told, I vow." The prophet is Queen Elizabeth I, and she is celebrating Sir Francis Drake, His Daring Deeds (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $12.95). So is Roy Gerrard, who imaginatively charts the rise of Britain's supersailor from cabin boy to conqueror of the Spanish Armada. Although the author-illustrator employs rhymed couplets and a suite of exuberant watercolors, he is textbook-true to history, pageantry, royalty and, most important, the man who "took his leave, with sails unfurled,/ to circumnavigate the world."

Far, far away there lies a lake where the great birds go in winter. Then, at the first hint of spring, they fly off in giant Vs that stretch across the Swan Sky (Philomel; $13.95). One season a female becomes too weak to travel. Her family is torn between staying with her and obeying the magnetic force that pulls them northward. With striking woodcuts in black, white and pervasive blue, Tejima, a Japanese artist, explains the cycle of the seasons and the migration of birds, which, like humans, carry on an unspoken dialogue with the changing face of nature.

Primary and secondary colors go first class in Who Said Red? (McElderry Books; $12.95). Mary Serfozo's lively text quotes a sister teasing her kid brother: "Now who said blue? Could it be you? A blue sky blue, a blue eye blue, a bow, a ball, a blue jean blue?" Or perhaps he wants "slicker yellow, sunshine yellow, lemonade and daisy yellow." But no; despite the additional temptations of purple, brown, pink and orange, the boy hews to one hue: "A cherry, berry, very red." And who can blame him? Keiko Narahashi shows a rainbow of appealing items, but the best is obviously Santa Claus on a fire engine. What redder, better way to say Merry Christmas?