The tale of the lovely young princess put to sleep for a hundred years by a vengeful fairy retains its shimmering sense of fate and romance, with David Walker's misty, dreamlike, watercolor paintings helping to cast the perfect magic spell.
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY By Charles Perrault. Translated and Illustrated by David Walker. 28 pp. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. $6.95. (Ages 6 to 9)
THE KING OF THE HUMMINGBIRDS And Other Tales, By John Gardner. Illustrated by Michael Sporn. 58 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $4.95. (Ages 10 to 13)
Michael Sporn's fierce drawings—very cool and unromantic—are suited to this book, in which the make‐believe creatures and landscapes of traditional fairy stories mingle with lingo like “dude” and “one sec” and “oy vay.” Where a princess can say to her hero. “Never mind, birdbrain.” Where the hero can be the fat, bespectacled, bookish only son of a poor Jewish blacksmith.
Irreverent, sophisticated and sometimes somewhat confusing, “The King of the Hummingbirds” tries to have it both ways, blending modern and magic with good nature and considerable dexterity. Those who prefer their fairy tales straight could, I imagine, find this collection annoying. The rest should find it witty, wacky fun.
Continue reading the main storyDADDY By Jeannette Caines. Illustrated by Ronald Himler. 32 pp. New York: Harper & Row. $4.95. (Ages 4 to 8)
In “Daddy,” life is a broken home with visitation rights for fathers on Saturdays, and this book is a warm‐hearted effort to show that, even in such circumstances, a little girl can still stay close to her daddy.
I suppose that a real slice of life might point out that daddies often don't show up on Saturdays, that they're often less loving and thoughtful than Windy's dad and also that tensions not tenderness, may frequently exist between a daddy's daughter and ladyfriend. But the book, with its really quite wonderful illustrations (the faces are black but the feelings are everyone's) is a valid acknowledgment of divorced family life. And in saying that caring relationships can, under such conditions, persist and grow, it offers a certain comfort, certain truth.
THE MA & PA MURDERS And Other Perfect Crimes. By Louis Solomon. 156 pp. Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company. $7.95. (Ages 12 to 15)
To the troubling question, Is this book really necessary? a question I've asked quite often in recent years, I find that I'm more and more often answering No. No, not because it's especially sleazy, incompetent or dull, but because it is just not substantial enough to become so substantial an object as a book.
Now this, I'll concede, is a treacherous view for a writer to be holding—how, after all, are we writers going to eat?—and I'll also concede that it's certainly presumptuous. And yet, as I sit here examining a pile of recent children's books (though the question arises with grown‐up books as well), I am struck with the fact that three, maybe four, of the eight that I have read no child would be the poorer for doing without.
Take “The Ma & Pa Murders and Other Perfect Crimes,” which presents six true and famous unsolved cases: a hijacking, a kidnap. ping, two robberies and two grim tales of murder. Now these are, I suppose, diverting enough, and the title story, the Lizzie Borden ax slayings, continues to hold a mythic fascination. And yet there's something so flimsy and slick about this crime collection that I felt that I ought to be reading it not between hardcovers but in one of those Real Life Detective pulp magazines.
FOLLOW THAT BUS! By Pat Hutchins. Illustrated by Laurence Hutchins. 102 pp. New York: Greenwillow/Morrow. $6.95. (Ages 7 to 10)
“Follow That Bus,” an adventure tale, is neither slick nor flimsy, and heaven knows it tries, it tries very hard, to be perky, peppy, jaunty, jolly and utterly hilarious about a gradeschool outing that turns into cops‐and‐robbers. Indeed, what I think is wrong with the book is that it tries so hard, its utter absence of free and easy effortlessness and the sense that here is this poor comic plot—with kidnappings, chases, mistaken identities, captures — being dragged and shoved along, creaking and groaning. With action replacing a lot of the words, this might do well as a half‐hour television special. But really, does it need to be
DON'T HURT LAURIE! By Willo Davis Roberts. Illustrated by Ruth Sanderson. 166 pp. New York: Atheneum. $6.95. (Ages 9 to 13)
The question of necessity comes up for yet another set of reasons after reading the battered child novel; “Don't Hurt Laurie!” in which a mother, full of a bitter rage she sometimes can't control, burns, beats, stabs and breaks the bones of her daughter. Isolated from friends (to whom she might reveal her plight), and increasingly convinced that her life is in danger, Laurie frantically struggles to survive. Hers is a persuasive, and blood‐chilling, story.
But it is also, I think, despite its efforts at restraint and psychological explanation, a story that by virtue of its sub ject matter is inevitably lurid, sadistic and violent. As a newspaper article or a case history for social workers, it could certainly be serviceable and instructive. As a book for 9‐to 13‐year‐olds, however, I'd have to conclude that no, it isn't necessary.
MISS NELSON IS MISSING! By Harry Allard. Illustrated by James Marshall. 32 pp. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $6.95. (Ages 4 to 7)
What is not necessary here, it seems to me, is that this book be so large in size, have color illustrations and cost so much. The story itself is pleasantly modest and gentle, telling how the kids in room 207 were so fresh and naughty that they lost their sweet‐natured teacher, the blonde Miss Nelson, and got in her place the sour‐souled Miss Swamp. This is a story whose humor and moralizing are unpretentiously low‐key, and it should have been placed in a less pretentious setting. At about half its size, “Miss Nelson Is Missing” could have been swell. But such overblown productions aren't necessary.
DOING THE TOLEDO Written and Illustrated By Barbara Bottner. 28 pp. New York: Four Winds Press. $5.95. (Ages 5 to 8)
“Doing the Toledo” is what could happen on any middleclass street when one of the kids (like this girl Genine) is a star at something (like doing the Toledo) and has to be flattered and coaxed by her friends (like Maurice and his brother Murray) before she'll finally let go and do her stuff. The story is double‐layered, contrasting the public words that the three friends speak to each other with the private thoughts in balloons above their head, and it's fun to learn what everyone's really thinking. The illustrations, like the text, have a light and playful bounce and may leave all bur kids with a to try the Toledo.
The life that “Doing the Toledo” is a slice of appears to be a safe, untroubled one, in which the sun always shines on the sidewalk and moms and dads live happily ever after. ■
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