THE CREMATION OF SAM MC GEE by Robert W. Service; illustrations by Ted Harrison (Greenwillow: $13; 32 pp.; age 6-up).

When Robert Service fled the Yukon in 1912, he retired in the hot sun of Monte Carlo, never to return to the frozen wilderness that had inspired his writing. His narrative poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” is about the cold and how cold affects people who live in it day after day.

Service was an Englishman who roamed the world in search of adventure, eventually settling in Canada. He worked at a bank of commerce where one of his customers was a fellow called Sam McGee. The poem’s narrator describes Sam as a Southerner who freezes to death while seeking Klondike gold, and whose dying wish is that his corpse be warmed to ashes. When his companion finds the Alice May, a ship trapped in ice on Lake LeBarge, he lights the broiler fire and stuffs Sam “in the glowing coal.” A curious twist reminds us of the meaning of cold.

Ted Harrison’s paintings are glorious. His vibrant colors and disregard for conventional form resemble the style of Henri Matisse. One thinks of cold in terms of blues, greens and whites, which Harrison uses, but he blends them with hot desert hues as if to say, “There is life here, and where there is life, warmth.” The effect is exhilarating as watching rainbows of Northern Lights splash across a winter sky. Another interesting break in tradition is his use of captions to explain true-to-life parallels, while, in fact, he is illustrating fictions.

Rhymes and alliterations make this fun to read aloud, and kids will love the story for it’s a tad gruesome. Sample the first and last stanza: “There are strange things done in the midnight sun/By the men who moil for gold;/The Arctic trails have their secret tales/That would make your blood run cold;/The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,/But the queerest they ever did see/Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge/I cremated Sam McGee.”

Today, visitors to the Yukon can attend The Frantic Follies’ stage version of “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” But for those who’ll never venture farther than a palm tree, there are these scrumptious pages to read in the shade.