A. Nonny Mouse and Other Children’s Poets

Out of the hundreds of books scattered throughout our house, my 5-year-old son repeatedly brings Dr. Seuss’ “McElligot’s Pool” to my lap. We have read it so many times that I catch myself mumbling the rhymes on my way to the mailbox or, worse, in the grocery store. Perhaps it’s because when I was 5, I begged my parents to read it, over and over and then again.

This year, Dr. Seuss reaches yet a third generation of readers, celebrating his 86th birthday with the publication of Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (Random House: $12.95; 48 pp.). This is his 43rd book for children, and you could call it New Age with its self-fulfillment theme. It has a large, shiny cover and the familiar creatures inside, although some of the pictures have a different look, possibly because Audrey S. Geisel shares their copyright.

The cheerful verse speaks to a male character as he explores life, with all its ups and downs. Seuss, the narrator, is like a favored uncle shouting encouragement from the bleachers. “You have brains in your head./ You have feet in your shoes./ You can steer yourself/ any direction you choose./ . . . With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high!/Ready for anything under the sky./Ready because you’re that kind of guy!”

Guy?

Dr. Seuss, this is the ‘90s! Little girls (and their mommies) will read this and feel left out. Couldn’t the story have starred a boy and a girl as in “The Cat in the Hat”? And why are the names at the end all boys’ names? For one lifelong fan, this is a major disappointment.

“At home in his favorite vermillion chair/sat Max Maximillion, the French zillionaire.” So begins the tale of Max, who with his young daughter, Claire, sets sail across the Atlantic aboard his luxury liner, the SS Gigantic. Cleverly rhymed and grandly illustrated in watercolors and ink, Edward Sorel’s The Zillionaire’s Daughter (Warner Juvenile Books: $12.95; 32 pp.) is fun to read. Sorel, whose drawings have graced the covers of a host of national magazines, captures the extravagant life of the wealthy and a father’s arrogant desire for a well-heeled son-in-law.

Poems of A. Nonny Mouse, selected by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Henrik Drescher (Alfred A. Knopf: $12.95; 44 pp.), is an anthology of curious origins. In the foreword, Prelutsky tells about a particular rodent named Ms. A. Nonny Mouse, with whom he has been corresponding for several years. It seems that some time ago a careless editor misspelled Ms. Mouse’s name when one of her poems was published. To Ms. Mouse’s distress, this typographical error has continued, with all credit going to “Anonymous” instead of to her.

At last things have been straightened out and A. Nonny Mouse now has her own and, gracious knows, long-overdue volume. Sixty-eight short and funny poems appear among Henrik Drescher’s zany watercolors. For literary sleuths, Prelutsky has sneaked in four of his own, unsigned and--I found them--silly as ever. Here’s one: “I dribbled catsup on my pet,/And that is why my cat’s upset. “ (Confession: I discovered their titles on the copyright page.)

Sometimes when kids listen to too many rollicking rhymes they begin bouncing and hollering as if they’ve eaten chocolate all day. To help quiet them down, here are a couple of smoothies.

Ruth Richardson’s illustrations for Liz Rosenberg’s Window, Mirror, Moon (Harper & Row; a Charlotte Zolotow Book: $12.95; 33 pp.) are sumptuously peaceful, with blues, purples and sea-foam green capturing a balmy evening. Like a lullaby, the verse rocks gently, describing the moon as it shines through a window onto a crib, then shimmers off the waves and off other things of the night. Inside a beach house, a baby sleeps peacefully while its father reads a book and its mother is out for a drive. The most comforting paintings are the first, which shows the mother cuddling her infant, and the last, with the baby’s parents embracing tenderly under the moonlight. A lovely, soothing book.

The Dream Stair, written by Betsy James and illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson (Harper & Row: $12.95; 32 pp.) is the poetic journey of a girl sleeping. After a kiss from her adoring grandmother, she closes her eyes and soon is climbing “up, up. Past cupboards full of petticoats, past cats and chimneys, past balloons and trees. Past pigeons. Past clouds, past angels, past blue air, still on the stair. “ Most notable are Richard Jesse Watson’s portrait-like illustrations that blend so well with the fantasy, as in his recent “Tom Thumb.” Using a Southwestern/Hispanic setting, he portrays the dreams as pleasant collages, rich with cultural symbols. Any child who has experienced the calm love of a grandmother will find these pages reassuring.