Book Selection Not Child’s Play : Publishing: Resources now exist to help bewildered parents choose high-quality reading materials from the 40,000 or so children’s books currently in print.

How do you choose a book for a child?

The task can be daunting, says Betsy Hearne, editor of the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, published 11 times a year by the University of Chicago Press.

The selection dilemma “haunts the aisles of every children’s book department,” she says. “Salespeople can’t always lay the question to rest. They sometimes don’t know where to start any more than the buyer does.”

Hearne, author of “Choosing Books for Children” (Delacorte hardcover, $21.95; Delta softcover, $9.95), says there are 40,000 children’s books in print--ranging from the bad to the glorious.

“For the last 20 years, I have seen most of the children’s books published every year and evaluated many of them,” Hearne notes. “The question of selection still seems as overwhelming to me, sometimes, as it must be to a new parent entering a bookstore.”

Hearne offers these general guidelines:

* For ages 2 to 6, choose picture books that have an illustration on every page and very little text.

* For ages 7 to 9, look for ready-to-read books that have short, episodic chapters; scattered illustrations; a simple vocabulary; slightly enlarged type; an open, friendly format; and a plot and cast of characters without too many complications.

* For ages 10 to 13, choose fiction based on the child’s interest, motivation and reading ease. This “middle-grade” audience has a variety from which to choose: comedy, tragedy, mystery, romance, adventure, fantasy and realism. The format should resemble a short novel.

For more specific recommendations on titles and authors, Hearne’s “Choosing Books for Children” has been expanded and updated, with specific suggestions and precise information on how to choose books for children at all stages of development.

Also available: The Horn Book Guide to Children’s and Young Adult Books, a new, semiannual guide to current hardcover trade books. The premier issue contains a review of each of the nearly 1,600 children’s and young adult titles published between July and December, 1989.

The Horn Book Guide includes reviews of picture books; preschool and “easy reader” books; and nonfiction and fiction, including fantasy, science fiction, mystery and suspense. Ann A. Flowers, editor of the guide, says every effort was made to include all eligible books by checking catalogues and by contacting publishers.

Each book listed in the Horn Book Guide is reviewed and rated from No. 1 (“outstanding”) to No. 6 (“not recommended”). Each entry also includes the author, illustrator, title, publisher, number of pages, grade level and price.

“Clearly, publishers are paying special attention to the growing, frequently affluent group of parents of younger children,” Flowers says.

She hopes the Horn Book Guide will reflect authors’ intentions--and success in achieving them--”so that a child or those who choose for him or her can find the way to the most wonderful, fascinating, perfect books.”

She says that only 2% of the 1,600 books reviewed in the first issue of the guide received a No. 1 rating as outstanding. More than 14% received a No. 6 rating as not recommended.

The second issue of the Horn Book Guide is scheduled for publication in September. The guide is published by the Horn Book Inc. of Boston, publishers of the Horn Book Magazine, a bimonthly publication that includes book reviews, articles about children’s books and news of the children’s book world.

A one-year subscription to the Horn Book Guide to Children’s and Young Adult Books costs $50; a single issue costs $25. For further information, write to the Horn Book Guide, Department G12, 14 Beacon St., Boston, Mass. 02108, or call (800) 325-1170.