A Gift Bag of Children's Books

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Pictures by Stephen Savage

A cold, still night. An arctic expanse of sea and ice. A frosty moon above. In another book those could be elements of a lonely, scary adventure. Here they're the setting for a strangely soothing bedtime story, illustrated by charmingly simple drawings. A polar-bear cub ventures out of the cozy den where her mother sleeps, drawn by "something in the moonlit stillness [that] quietly beckons. What is it?" The air of expectancy and mystery builds as she passes other sleeping animals — walrus, seals, whales — and arrives atop a mountain of snow, where "she waits, wondering." The moon, her companion, waits with her. Then a spectacular shower of shooting stars lights up the world and the other animals, and the little bear shines bright too. After this moment of mystical harmony with nature, she trudges home to her mother's soft, warm fur. It's hard to say what all this means. Better to simply say, Good night, little cub.

Scholastic Press; $15.95

Alice the Fairy
By David Shannon

Alice cheerfully admits she's only a temporary fairy. She can use her wand to make herself disappear (by pushing the light switch) and can use fairy dust (a.k.a. sugar) to turn oatmeal into cake. But trickier feats, like turning her bath water into strawberry Jell-O or casting a spell so that her dog floats on the ceiling, she realizes, are reserved for permanent fairies, who go to advanced school and must pass a lot of tests. Alice is still at a level in which she suffers setbacks like accidentally turning her white dress into a red one (spilled juice). Spunky, sassy Alice, delightfully portrayed in Shannon's zestful drawings, is a fairy who seems content to remain grounded in the everyday. She senses — and her antics prove — there's plenty of magic there too.

Blue Sky Press; $15.95

A Spree in Paree
By Catherine Stock

After farmer Monmouton sighs that he could do with a vacation in Paris, all his animals squeeze into his truck and beep impatiently. They're ready for a break too. The entourage descends on Paris and quickly fans out — the goats to smell (and sometimes taste) the flowers in the Luxembourg Gardens, the cows to gaze at paintings of cows in the Louvre, the hens to cackle at the cancan dancers at the Folies Bergère. One of the joys of Stock's exuberant watercolors is the absolute sangfroid with which waiters, pedestrians and other Parisians greet this animal invasion, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. Home again, Monmouton swears off vacations as too exhausting. But in the barn, the animals are already looking at travel brochures for New York City. If this signals a sequel in the making, then allons!

Holiday House; $16.95