Stories to Tell a Six-Year-Old - Softcover

Low follows Stories to Tell a Five-Year-Old (1996) with 20 more folktales, short stories, picture-book texts, and chapters, all categorized either as "Stories of Magic and Adventure" or "Stories of You and Me," and illustrated with small, new pen-and-ink drawings. With just two exceptions--" The Ugly Duckling" and "Little Red-Cap" have been rewritten in simpler language--the selections are self-contained and brim with appeal: the tales of Pippi Longstocking's disruptive trip to the circus and Henry Huggins' disastrous efforts to bring his new dog Ribsy home on the bus are drawn from favorite chapter books; Jay Williams' groundbreaking "Practical Princess" and Mary Poppins' uncle Albert Wigg's involuntary tea on the ceiling will please fans of the classics; two chapters from Nicholasa Mohr's Magic Shell (1995) change the generally light mood with a tale about a lonely Dominican boy in New York; and the collection ends with a flourish--Margery Williams' "Velveteen Rabbit." This compact paperback should be a hit for travel and bedtime reading both. John Peters

Grade 1-3?This anthology is divided into two categories: "Stories of Magic and Adventure" and "Stories of You and Me." Most of the selections are chapters from books such as Mary Poppins, Pippi Longstocking, Henry Huggins, and Little House in the Big Woods. Others include picture books such as Margot Zemach's It Could Always Be Worse. The small pen-and-ink line drawings do little to enhance the text, and the title is so limiting that the book probably will not have a wide circulation. While these excerpts are short enough for bedtime reading, parents should be encouraged to borrow the entire book from which a selection has been taken. Not a necessary purchase.?Janet M. Bair, Trumbull Library, CT
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