A Child's Garden of Delights: Pictures, Poems, and Stories for Children

Adults will be immediately engrossed in this treasury of ""pictures, poems, and stories for children from the collections of the New York Public Library.'' Familiar names among these pagesthe Goops, Oscar Wilde, Carlo Collodi, John Ruskin, Christina G. Rossetti and othersmake it easy for the casual reader to get involved in a journey of happy distractions. The library's collection yielded color illustrations by Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott, and Edward Steichen's black-and-white photographs for a book for his child. A hilarious episode by A. B. Frost called ``The Fatal Mistake,'' involving a cat who unintentionally imbides rat poison, resides next to short stories by Louisa May Alcott and William Pene du Bois. Despite the known jewels within, this is a heavy volume relatively dense with text, but not with color. It's less likely that a young reader will come to this book without guidance, and most likely that this will find a niche on the family bookshelf, for savoring and sharing. All ages. A BOMC selection. (September)