When the World Was Young: Creation and Pourquoi Tales

Margaret Mayo. Simon & Schuster, $19.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-689-80867-8

A wealth of traditional stories-fairy tales, creation stories, folktales-have circumnavigated the globe to appear in collections this season. Margaret Mayo engagingly retells 10 creation stories from Ghana, Iceland, Guatemala and around the world in When the World Was Young: Creation and Pourquoi Tales. Her lively, suspenseful renditions bring masterful storytelling skill to the ancient stories, with titles like ""The Girl Who Did Some Baking"" and ""Tortoise's Big Idea."" Louise Brierley's watercolors in deep, subtle colors are a stand-out: the odd, inventive animals and people with archetypal faces who populate her work make it somehow both fantastic and plain, whimsical and mythic.

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