BOOKS FOR KIDS

A GIFT FROM ZEUS Sixteen Favorite Myths By Jeanne Steig, Illustrated by William Steig HarperCollins/Cotler: 176 pp., $17.95

Kudos to the Steigs, who employ colloquial prose, agile rhymes and Art Brut imagery to retell Greco-Roman myths. But beware: Like Ovid’s “The Metamorphoses,” this zesty volume is a Pandora’s box of hubris, lust and homicide. It opens with Prometheus, whose brother receives curvy, nude Pandora and her “baggage” from Mt. Olympus. “Think twice, brother,” Prometheus says. “A gift from Zeus is not likely to be a bargain.” In a scrawled ink drawing, jack-in-the-box dragons pop out of a golden trunk. Elsewhere, lewd Zeus makes trouble by seducing Europa (as a bull) and doing a swan-dive on Leda (fully clothed but smiling blissfully): “He could never resist a mortal woman, especially one so agreeably sprawled on a bed of myrtle under the Spartan sky.”

Besides amorous gods, ravished virgins and incestuous parents, the collection recounts the weaving duel between mortal maiden Arachne and wrathful goddess Minerva and the tragic love of Orpheus and Eurydice. Jeanne Steig admirably distills the famous stories, which she spices with euphemism and mordantly witty verse; only the knotty sagas of Theseus and Perseus contain a surfeit of complications. William Steig provides an antidote to mundane neoclassical art, sketching voluptuous nymphs and bloodthirsty boars in a coarse hand. An iconic drawing of the key element in each story appears as a chapter opener (e.g., a golden goblet for Midas). These racy myths will raise eyebrows (e.g., Daedalus fashions a cow suit for bull-besotted Pasipha), along with a curiosity for the originals. (Ages 9 and up)

DINOSAUR BONES By Bob Barner Chronicle: 32 pp., $15.95

The creator of “Dem Bones” digs up another set of rattling fine specimens for this splashy expedition into the world of fossils. A simple rhyme (“Dinosaurs are gone for good./ Maybe dinosaurs once lived in your neighborhood!”) serves as an umbrella framework for a lesson on prehistoric favorites. Each turn of the page pairs a single stanza in hand-lettered type (“Dinosaurs had teeth to bite and jaws to chew”) with an accompanying illustration, while a bite-size piece of additional information in smaller type helps extend the book’s appeal to older readers (“The shape of the jaws and teeth help scientists find out if a dinosaur was a meat or plant eater”). The snappy, vigorous rhymes (“They had bones with disks and bones with points,/ bones for running with sockets and joints”) propel the production forward, while the artwork, a jazzy blend of pen-and-ink, watercolor, cut and torn paper and computer graphics creates a tantalizing blend of streamlined form and saturated colors. Bob Barner shows each spotlighted dinosaur in skeletal and living form, and two concluding spreads offer more information in a height chart and “dinometer” chart, answering such questions as “What did it eat?” and “What does its footprint look like?” A splendid introduction to a perennially popular subject. (Ages 2 to 8)

LOVE THAT DOG By Sharon Creech. HarperCollins/Cotler: 112 pp., $14.95

In last year’s “Fishing in the Air,” Sharon Creech took a spare, metaphorical approach to a father-son relationship. Here she examines the bond between a boy and his dog to create an ideal homage to the power of poetry and those who write it. The volume itself builds like a poem. Told exclusively through Jack’s dated entries in a school journal, the book opens with his resistance to writing verse: “September 13/ I don’t want to/ because boys/ don’t write poetry./ Girls do.”

Readers sense the gentle persistence of Jack’s teacher, Miss Stretchberry, behind the scenes, from the poems she reads in class and from her coaxing, to which the boy alludes, until he begins to write some poems. One by William Carlos Williams, for instance, inspires Jack’s words: “So much depends/ upon/ a blue car/ splattered with mud/ speeding down the road.” A Robert Frost poem sends Jack into a tale (in verse) of how he found his dog, Sky. At first, his poems appear to be discrete works. But when a poem by Walter Dean Myers (“Love That Boy” from “Brown Angels”) unleashes the joy Jack felt with his pet, he becomes even more honest in his poetry. Jack’s next work is cathartic: All of his previous verses seemed to be leading up to this piece de resistance, an admission of his profound grief over Sky’s death. He then can move on from his grief to write a poem (inspired by Myers) about his joy at having known and loved his dog. As in any great poem, the real story surfaces between the lines.

From Jack’s entries, readers learn how unobtrusively his teacher guides him to poems he can collect and emulate, and how patiently she convinces him to share his work. By exposing Jack and readers to the range of poetry that moves Jack (the poems appear at the back of the book), Creech conveys a life truth: Pain and joy exist side by side. For Jack and for readers, the memory of that dog lives on in his poetry. Readers will love that dog and this book. (Ages 8 to 12)

ALPHABET ADVENTURE By Audrey Wood. Illustrated by Bruce Wood. Scholastic/Blue Sky: 40 pp., $15.95

The mother-son team behind “The Christmas Adventure of Space Elf Sam” presents 26 bold, athletic-looking lower-case letters called “Charley’s Alphabet” in this unorthodox ABC. After working hard all summer with their teacher, Capital T, they are on their way to the first day of school. But they’re held up when the letter i loses her dot.

Audrey Wood’s straightforward text and quirky premise keep the story moving apace: “Hurry! School begins soon. We must find her dot, or we’ll be late!” says Capital T. The letters come up with a plan, and race around to find a substitute for Little i to wear--s offers a star, h a heart--but at the last moment the mischievous dot returns (anxious about being replaced). Observant youngsters will note the dot’s various hiding places in previous illustrations.

Bruce Wood endows the crayon-colored alphabet letters with personality through their posture and actions and places them in a hyper-realistic computer-generated resort where crisp-edged gondolas glide through canals lined with candy-striped buildings and swaying palm trees. The horizontal layout of the book mimics film stills: The text crawls along the bottom of tropically colored spreads like so many subtitles. The climactic scene, a shot from high in the air, shows the letters aboard a streamlined yellow pencil bound for the classroom, where youngsters finally meet young Charley. A fresh and roundly satisfying excursion for those learning their ABCs. (Ages 3 and older)