...AND SOME NICE THINGS TO READ

By John Skow

--If I Had a Robot By Dan Yaccarino (Viking; $14.99) The story gets right to the high-tech point: if Phil, the pint-size hero, had a robot, this gigantic mechanical best friend could eat Phil's Brussels sprouts (yuck!) and lima beans (ugh!). And take Phil's piano lessons. And go to school for him. And beat up bad guys. And eat Phil's chocolate cake...oops, wait a minute; not so fast! Equally charming are the author's bright, funny illustrations, which show Phil wearing a baseball cap frontward, not backward. Could this fashion statement signal the beginning of a trend?

--The Lonely Lioness and the Ostrich Chicks By Verna Aardema (Knopf; $17) This Masai tale is wonderful fun to read aloud. That's because of the unusual sound effects. The lioness jumps out of a tree--"gurum!"--and the ostrich chicks run away--"pamdal"--but the lioness, yearning for children even if they have feathers, corrals the chicks and purrs, "Irtil-irtil-irtil." A hyena tries to help the mother ostrich, then slinks away, "Pasa, pasa, pasa." "Nnnn," groans the rightful mother, when suddenly...Quirky illustrations by Yumi Heo are full of gurum, pamdal and lots of tuk-pik, tuk-pik, tuk-pik.

--The Leaf Men By William Joyce (HarperCollins; $15.95) Sentimental and old-timey, The Leaf Men tells the teary tale of a sick old lady; her garden, which withers because she can't tend it; and a lost toy, a little metal man, that she misplaced years ago. This odd story is entomologically incorrect, no doubt, because it also deals with good bugs, bad bugs and a villainous spider queen who must be killed by the heroes--mysterious green leaf men. What make Joyce's book exceptional are his vivid paintings of a scary, moonlit tree climb to summon the leaf men. The trek is undertaken by a platoon of doodlebugs, those little roly-poly fellows who curl up into balls when frightened. Imaginative child listeners will curl up too.

--Fireflies, Fireflies, Light My Way By Jonathan London (Viking; $14.99). The title becomes part of a familiar chant ("Fireflies, fireflies, light my way/ Lead me to the place where the turtles play") when the story is read by an adult with a three-year-old chiming in. Linda Messier's glowing, Henri Rousseau-inspired illustrations help a child recognize the frogs, catfish, wood ducks and otters that inhabit a nighttime pond deep in the woods. Alligators turn up too, but this being a gentle tale, they pretty much keep to themselves.

--When Willard Met Babe Ruth By Donald Hall (Browndeer; $16) This book, like much of Hall's adult work, is set in Wilmot Flat, New Hampshire. Here, some time ago, a burly fellow named Babe Ruth, then a member of the Boston Red Sox, slid his roadster into a ditch. Fortunately for the ballplayer, a team of oxen belonging to young Willard's dad was on hand to pull his car out of trouble. Hall, a sportswriter whose day job is penning poetry, has Willard follow the Babe's career the way fans all over the country did back then. Barry Moser's drawings have just the right shading of nostalgic mist. The author, it should be noted, does not use the word curse to describe what has befallen the Red Sox since they sold Ruth to the Yankees, but he does admit the move was unaccountable.

--First, Second By Daniil Kharms (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $16) Here is splendid silliness based on a traditional theme (remember the Oz books?): goofily ill-assorted companions who wamble off to have nutty adventures together. Can a very long man, a very short man, two boys, a donkey and a boat all fit into a rinky-dink car? Not easily, it turns out, in this amiable tale written in the Soviet Union in the 1930s but only recently introduced to the Anglophone world, thanks to Richard Pevear's nifty translation. Artist Marc Rosenthal's cartoons have the cheerful, addlepated look of a comics page from 60 years ago.

--Minty By Alan Schroeder (Dial; $16.99) Calm and clear-eyed, Minty is an introduction to the historical reality of slavery. The title figure, by nickname, is Harriet Tubman the child, who was born a slave in 1820 in Maryland (and who, of course, went on as a freewoman to help hundreds of other slaves escape north along the Underground Railroad). Jerry Pinkney's strong, evocative drawings depict a harsh plantation life--though minus the worst brutalities, such as beatings--and make clear to modern kids the horror of a time when blacks could be "sold south," like cows or horses, never to see their families again.

--The Fantastic Drawings of Danielle By Barbara McClintock (Houghton Mifflin Co.; $15.95). Once again we have that old favorite, the unappreciated child artist. (Are there no unappreciated child accountants or periodontists?) Young Danielle is the daughter of a turn-of-the-century photographer in Paris, an excessively earthbound fellow who, despite his own talent, looks unhappily at the girl's wild sketches of fish, foxes, giraffes and other fauna dressed like fine mesdames et messieurs (lovingly redrawn for her by the author). No fear; a real, live woman artist rescues the kid and lets her draw as many fishy foxes as she likes.

--By John Skow