BOOKS FOR KIDS

AESOP’S FABLES By Jerry Pinkney; North-South/SeaStar: 96 pp., $19.95

Beautifully designed, this lush, oversize volume showcases Jerry Pinkney’s artistry in grand style. There’s a king’s ransom worth of material here, as Pinkney serves up

more than 60 of the ancient Greek slave-philosopher’s fables. Aesop’s wisdom spills across the pages as freely as Pinkney’s glorious watercolors, alight with the many creatures who people the tales, from fiddling grasshoppers and diligent ants to wily foxes, clever crows, brave mice and grateful lions. Each of the

vigorous retellings concludes with the kind of succinct moral that centuries of readers have come to expect (e.g., “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched”; “You are judged by the company you keep”). And whether the homilies concern a wolf in sheep’s clothing or sour grapes, the timeless virtues resonate as freshly as the day they were minted. Pinkney brings his considerable talent to bear on everything from thumbnail animal portraits to sweeping full-page vistas of hearth and woodlands, and his detail, delicacy of line and subtle palette create an elegant foil for the simple parables. If there’s room on the shelf for only one picture-book version of Aesop, this could be it. (All ages)

OLIVIA By Ian Falconer ; Atheneum/Schwartz: 40 pp., $16

Come one, come all for this extraordinary debut for both Ian Falconer and his unforgettable porcine heroine. The author/artist begins this day-in-the-life tale with a kind of behind-the-scenes peek at Olivia. Articles from her wardrobe are strewn across the endpapers--red tights, red sunglasses, a red T-shirt and red tank top--until the title page reveals her selection: a red sailor dress with black-and-white striped tights.

“This is Olivia. She is good at lots of things,” the narrator begins, like an emcee introducing the star of the show. The genius of the volume is its economy: the brief text brilliantly plays off the artwork, rendered only in shades of red and black with an occasional background setting; a deceptively simple design unifies each spread. For one such spread, demonstrating “[s]he is very good at wearing people out,” Falconer shows Olivia engaged in a variety of activities in 13 black-and-white vignettes, using red sparingly--for a hammer handle, a yo-yo, a ball, a mixing bowl spatula and a jump-rope--as she progresses from energetic to spent. Against a completely white background, these vignettes seem to bob on invisible undulating waves, with the intermittent splashes of red creating a sense of movement and urgency--until Olivia’s collapse at the lower right-hand corner of the spread beneath a single line of text (“She even wears herself out”).

The few full scenes amplify the deadpan humor: a beach setting allows for the full impact of Olivia’s spectacular sandcastle model of the Empire State Building; a full-bleed black-and-white image of a tutu- and tiara-clad Olivia bowing to unseen fans answers the narrator’s question, “What could she be thinking?” as she stares at her favorite painting, featuring Degas’ ballerinas, in a museum. Whether in full scenes or vignettes, Falconer keeps the focus on his inimitable protagonist. He clearly understands his audience: a standout spread shows Olivia getting dressed in her red-only wardrobe (“She has to try on everything”) in 17 separate fashion poses. Falconer’s choice to suggest Olivia with minimal details and a masterful black line allows readers to readily identify with her--no doubt, they will. There’s a little bit of Olivia in everyone. (Ages 3 to 7)

KATE AND THE BEANSTALK By Mary Pope Osborne Illustrated by Giselle Potter; Atheneum/Schwartz: 40 pp., $16

Mary Pope Osborne tweaks tradition with this feminist rendition of a classic fairy tale. Here it’s Kate instead of Jack who trades her family’s cow for magic beans and later climbs the beanstalk to find a kingdom in the clouds. Like Ann Beneduce’s recent “Jack and the Beanstalk,” Osborne draws from a late-19th century source for her retelling that incorporates a disguised fairy queen and a motivation for repeated visits to the giant--avenging Kate’s father’s death. Osborne’s witty and spry reworking (she changes the giant’s famous refrain to accommodate Kate’s gender, “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum’un,/ I smell the blood of an Englishwoman”) shows Kate in a confident light (“I fear nothing when I’m doing right,” the heroine tells the fairy queen). Through her cleverness and resourcefulness (and the unwitting help of the giant’s wife), the heroine earns back all that the giant usurped from her family. Giselle Potter’s (“Gabriella’s Song”) airy gouache and watercolor illustrations sparkle with humor and exploit the perspectives offered by the towering beanstalk. With her Princess Leia-style hairdo, a few disguises and a can-do attitude, Kate comes across as a real action heroine, whether setting off determinedly with the family cow, nipping up the beanstalk or pedaling an eggbeater to assist the giantess in preparing breakfast. There’s much to enjoy in this spunky picture book, which puts a fresh face on an old favorite. (All ages)

SIR WALTER RALEGH AND THE QUEST FOR EL DORADO By Marc Aronson Clarion: 240 pp., $20

Demonstrating the same keen passion for his subject as in his “Art Attack,” Marc Aronson examines the life of a contradictory and complex Elizabethan figure, both poet and soldier. As in the best of biographies, the author expands his narrative beyond the details of a single life to draw a nuanced and compelling portrait of the times in which he lived. Aronson sets the stage with a preface describing the many, often conflicting

symbolic meanings that the quest for El Dorado, the fabled South American city of gold, held for early modern Europeans. He deftly intersperses a chronological account of the often paradoxical details of Ralegh’s life with the tumultuous changes taking place in early modern Europe. In this way Aronson provides a cultural context for a man who could write love sonnets to his queen and also mount bloody battles against the Irish. He makes no excuses for Ralegh, but vividly paints the rise of a gentleman farmer’s son, with no real connections, to a court favorite. In another irony, because Ralegh was favored by the queen, she granted him a “patent” to stake claims in the New World yet he himself did not set sail: “Ralegh remained near money and power, while his men sailed off the edges of the map.” Both fascinating and daunting, the account may be challenging for those with little prior knowledge of the period; however, the exceedingly well-researched archival maps and prints, timeline, “Cast of Characters” and extensive endnotes and bibliography will help budding historians get their bearings. Aronson’s portrait of “the first modern man” is both provocative and tantalizing, revealing his subject as a person of canny wit and magnetism with all-too-human shortcomings. (Ages 11 and up)