The Adventures of Robin Hood

Don Quixote, Sinbad the Sailor and Joseph (with his coat of many colors) have all been give in exuberant new incarnations at the hands of the talented Williams, who here makes Robin Hood and his band merry indeed as she translates their feats into comic-strip-style art. Robin Hood's charisma and his colleagues' diverse personalities provide rich raw material for Williams's witty narrative and pun-filled asides, resulting in what may well be her most child-appreciated work yet. Her snappy text and characteristic, riotously detailed panel art recount a host of well-loved adventures, among them how the homeless, hapless Robin of Locksley comes to vow to help the poor under the nickname of Robin Hood; how Marian and Friar Tuck join the spirited outlaws; and how Robin, disguised as a beggar, tricks the Sheriff of Nottingham to win the Golden Arrow as the finest archer in England. Though not as vibrantly colored as in her previous volumes, Williams's inventively bordered art emphasizes the more subdued, earthy tones of the legendary Sherwood Forest-punctuated, of course, by Robin Hood's trademark Lincoln green. Ages 5-up. (Mar.)