Telling Tales

Sit right here, honey, and I’ll read to you. All kinds of official studies show that reading aloud to preschool children is good for them. Even an unofficial grandma like me knows of the countless benefits for the reader, the readee and the written word. And this collection is designed for reading aloud. The title may be a bit overweening, but the concept is interesting: Here, in one volume, 44 well-known picture books have been gathered together and reproduced, with necessary adjustments for size and space, on 308 big, glossy pages. Although the book is too unwieldy to be wrestled off a shelf or held by a 4-year-old, that doesn’t mean one or two wouldn’t like to snuggle up and look at the pictures while listening to old favorites like “Goodnight Moon,” “Madeline” or “Curious George.”

In her introduction to the collection, Janet Schulman, a seasoned editor, experienced in marketing, makes it clear that the picture books selected, in addition to being “all personal favorites,” are popular choices too. Each selection is identified by a tiny colored book that symbolizes the age group it is best suited for: red for the youngest, blue for slightly older nonreaders and green for the over-5 crowd. Anyone who loves the picture book genre will probably agree with some of these choices and disagree with some others. I was disappointed to find nothing by Jon Agee or James Stevenson or Charlotte Zolotow, to name a few.

Much of the success of a picture book depends on the marriage between pictures and words. How do they respond to each other, augment and illuminate each other? How does the balancing act set up between them proceed from page to page? In only two of the works in this anthology have the words been “slightly abridged.” But what is sacrificed, with all the graphic rearranging, is the heart and soul of the telling, its beautiful assistant, the timing. Because so much of a narrative’s drama is linked to turning the pages, when page turns are lessened or eliminated, so is the drama.

Some books translate better than others from their original formats to the pages of this collection. This is true of Maurice Sendak’s handsomely crosshatched “Where The Wild Things Are,” published in 1963, and Donald Crew’s sleek “Freight Train” from 1978 and is due in part to the very dissimilar simplicity and strengths of their narratives, visual and verbal. In addition, both books have the good fortune to survive scaling down with no change in their page breaks and no art lost.

Two other all-time favorites have a more difficult time making the “necessary adjustments” to their new space requirements. “Ferdinand the Bull,” written by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson, and Wanda Gag’s “Millions of Cats” become stories with incidental illustrations when they are redesigned to fit their “20th Century” berths.

A similar problem occurs with “The Story of Little Babaji,” Fred Marcellino’s triumphant recreation of Helen Bannerman’s “Little Black Sambo,” which was written in 1899 and was published in its present form in 1996. By changing the venue from Africa to India and replacing the old offending art with witty, graceful watercolors, Marcellino made “Little Babaji” into a wonderful 72-page volume. It is perfect to hold while turning charming pages, unfolding the classic adventure a few lines at a time. Babaji resides on the last six pages of this collection and, make no mistake, it looks good, and no words have been sacrificed, but the lines do break differently and a lot of fine illustrations had to be jettisoned to conform to the space. The beautifully planned rhythm and tension built into “Little Babaji” are noticeably diminished here. Another result of grouping several pages on one big page is that it is not always clear where to look first. The reader needs to take on the role of tour director to keep the nonreader on track by pointing out where we are now.

However, and this is a large however, comparing originals with their “20th Century” incarnations will be irrelevant to children who have never before seen these books. William Steig’s richly illustrated “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble” is more successful in its original format, as a big flat book that can be held by small hands. But wouldn’t you prefer having “Sylvester” and 43 other picture books in their collected, albeit modified, forms to not having them at all? Of course.

In her introduction, Schulman suggests that if a child falls for a particular “Treasury” tale her parents might “consider purchasing the original book.” Although this sounds like a commercial for picture books, it also has the ring of very good advice. In other words, read aloud and, while you are at it, put your money where your mouth is.