Bring on the Figgy Pudding

In this issue of Children’s Bookshelf we highlight a fraction of the season’s many splendid choices for young readers and grownups lucky enough to be reading aloud to them. Happy Holidays!

Books with festive themes abound: A bunch of bovines sporting red stocking caps descend (quite literally) on an unsuspecting family in Santa Cows by Cooper Edens, illustrated by Daniel Lane (Green Tiger Press: $14; ages 3-8), while over in Italy a young clown puts on a terrific show for the woebegone elders of a hard-luck village in Tomie dePaola’s Jingle the Christmas Clown (Putnam: $15.95; ages 3-8). The Christmas Witch by Steven Kellogg (Dial: $15; ages 3-8) is as exciting and outrageous a tall tale as are most of this popular author’s stories--including his other new book, “Mike Fink” (Dial: $15). The intricately detailed color photographs of Walter Wick in I Spy Christmas: A Book of Picture Riddles, with riddles by Jean Marzollo (Scholastic / Cartwheel: $12.95; ages 2-7), will send eager young readers on a hide-and-seek quest. Catherine Stock’s tropical watercolors complement author Lynn Joseph’s fond memories (especially of food) of her childhood celebrations in Trinidad, recounted in An Island Christmas (Clarion: $14.95; ages 3-9).

Celebrations of the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa are given their due in Habari Gani? What’s the News? A Kwanzaa Story by Sundaira Morninghouse, with vivid paintings by Jody Kim (Open Hand, Box 22048, Seattle, Wash. 98122, 206/447-0597: $14.95; ages 3-10), and Deborah M. Newton Chocolate’s simply written My First Kwanzaa Book, illustrated by Cal Massey (Scholastic / Cartwheel: $10.95; ages 3-7).

In A Family Hanukkah, illustrated by Caryl Herzfeld (Random House: $7.99; ages 3-9), author Bobbi Katz interweaves the history of the holiday with the details of a modern-day celebration. Louise August’s powerful woodcuts illustrate Nina Jaffe’s old-world tale In the Month of Kislev: A Story for Hanukkah (Viking: $15; ages 3-9) while Songs of Chanukah, compiled by Jean Modesitt, illustrated by Robin Spowart and with musical arrangements by Uri Ophir (Little, Brown: $15.95; all ages), offers both a recipe for latkes and instructions for playing dreydyl.

PICTURE BOOKS

Stories about creative conflict-resolution are always fun. How peace is arrived at between two extremely ornery hens provides the plot in Zinnia and Dot, by Lisa Campbell Ernst (Viking: $14; ages 2-6), while a young Japanewe woman who won’t compromise with her society’s unfair expectations is the heroine in The Girl Who Loved Caterpillars, adapted by Jean Merrill and illustrated by Floyd Cooper (Philomel: $14.95; ages 4-8); in the end, the others come to see things her odd way.

A nasty girl in the habit of scaring her nice little buddy gets her comeuppance in Bootsie Barker Bites by Barbara Bottner, illustrated by Peggy Rathman (Putnam: $14.95; ages 3-8), as do the classmates who eventually befriend Cleversticks by Bernard Ashley, illustrated by Derek Brazell (Crown: ages 3-7), about a little boy who can’t do anything right until he demonstrates the art of eating with chopsticks.

But in Sheep Out to Eat, the main characters decide it’s best to eat without benefit of any utensils at all (“Sheep crunch. Sheep munch. The lawn is what they want for lunch”). Nancy Shaw’s clever follow-up to “Sheep in a Jeep,” “Sheep on a Ship” and “Sheep in a Shop” is illustrated by Margot Apple (Houghton Mifflin: $13.95; ages 2-7). These sheep would probably bite much more than they could chew if they were grazing in the pages of David Wiesner’s June 29, 1999 (Clarion: $15.95; ages 3-8), about a crop of humongous veggies that fall to earth after one girl’s science-fair project goes awry.

Food is an ever-popular device in picturebooks--for instance, the yummy-sounding mooncakes in Amy Tan’s The Moon Lady (Macmillan, $16.95; ages 3-9), with the impressively detailed artwork of Gretchen Schields. This story of a young Chinese girl’s misadventures is adapted from the author’s best-selling adult novel “The Joy Luck Club.” Amy Heath’s Sofie’s Role, illustrated by Sheila Hamanaka (Four Winds Press: $14.95; ages 3-8), about a young girl’s debut in her parents’ Broadway bakery, includes recipes for both miniature marzipan fruits and buttery cookies called cinnamon stars. And in Fanny at Chez Panisse, with watercolor pictures by Ann Arnold (HarperCollins: $23; ages 6 and up), you can learn all about one of America’s most famous restaurants--Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, Calif.--from the viewpoint of the owner’s daughter; the book includes 46 simple recipes for pizza, pasta, salad and many other good things.

Tininess is of the essence in Monica Hughes’ retelling of an old Japanese fairytale, Little Fingerling, illustrated by Brenda Clark (Ideals: $13.95; ages 3-9); our hero starts out to seek his fortune while still no bigger than a rice bowl. Even littler are the infants found by a childless couple in Laura Krauss Melmed’s The Rainbabies (Lothrop, $15.95; ages 2-7); a half dozen can bed down at a time in one shoe in the lovely illustrations by Jim LaMarche.

While the invisible spirits are kindly and comforting in Jamal and the Angel, by Anita Rodriguez (Potter: $14; ages 2-7), they often cause no end of trouble in the stories collected in The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia C. McKissack, illustrated with Brian Pinkney’s accomplished woodcuts (Knopf: $15; ages 8 and up).

High art it’s not--but the too-many pink plastic birds make a beautiful sight in Mrs. Fitz’s Flamingos by Kevin McCloskey (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard: $14; ages 2-8), the tale of an elderly Brooklynite’s unique way of improving her dull urban view.

Spectacular underwater views are the thing in The Sign of the Seahorse: A Tale of Greed and High Adventure in Two Acts by Graeme Base (Abrams: $19.95; ages 7-10), a sequel to the Australian author’s “Animalia.” this new book is a love story between Pearl Trout and Bert the Soldiercrab with a suspenseful environmentalist subplot.

For really little babies, there’s a new adventure of Alexandra Day’s babysitting rottweiler named Carl: Carl’s Masquerade (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $11.95; ages 1-5), as well as new format “board book” versions of the author’s previous books, “Carl Goes Shopping,” “Carl’s Christmas” and “Carl’s Afternoon in the Park” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: $5.95 each). Chris Van Allsburg’s work is at its most grim and brooding in The Widow’s Broom (Houghton Mifflin, $17.95; ages 3-8), a tale of an incorrigibly bewitched housekeeping aid. And a stuffed pet who goes astray and then finds his way back is central to the plot of Where’s My Teddy, written and illustrated by Jez Alborough (Candlewick Press: $14.95; ages 2-6).

WORD POWER

The subtitle of Wicked Words by Hugh Rawson (Crown: $14, paper; ages 12 and up) says it all: “A Treasury of Curses, Insults, Put-Downs, and Other Formerly Unprintable Terms From Anglo-Saxon Times to the Present.” In short, it’s just the kind of reference book every child really wants. Here youngsters can read up on the long and distinguished history of the word “punk” or the derivation of a word many parents would find very useful: “pettifogger” (“a quibbling lawyer, especially an unscrupulous one”). They will jump at the chance to delve into the nuances of many juicier words that--it must be noted--some oldsters may find offensive.

Two paperbacks designed to nudge young people in the direction of creativity are How to Tape Instant Oral Biographies: Recording Your Family’s Life Story in Sound and Sight and Make Beliefs: A Gift for Your Imagination (Bantam: $8.50 each; age 8 and up). The latter is a fill-in-the-blanks book of “what if?” questions; both are illustrated with Tom Bloom’s line drawings. Artist Mike Wilks wrote and illustrated the incredibly intricate Ultimate Alphabet (Henry Holt: $14.95; all ages), in which the object is to search for literally hundreds of objects concealed on each of 26 pages.

The powerful words of the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth, James Baldwin and W. B. Yeats--writing about their favorite sports--are among those collected in The Twentieth Century Treasury of Sports, edited by Al Silverman and Brian Silverman (Viking Penguin, $30; ages 12 and up).

Other satisfying books for language-lovers include two about palindromes: Even “Bob, a nabob” would have to crack a smile reading If I Had a Hi-Fi by William Irvine, illustrated by Steven Guarnaccia (Laurel: $5.99, paper; ages 5 and up). And Jon Agee’s Go Hang a Salami! I’m a Lasagna Hog! (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $12.21), though slim, is worth its price: Look closely at it, and “sue us!” if you don’t think so.