A Tale for Easter

Tasha Tudor's 1941 A Tale for Easter is handsomely reissued in a seven-inch-square format. Sentimental yet child-friendly, the book uses a second-person narration to evoke the pleasures of Easter as experienced in a long-ago rural idyll. ""On Saturday you go and ask the chickens to lay you plenty of Easter eggs,"" writes Tudor; a watercolor decoration of a plump hen on its nest faces a page showing an angelic girl in bonnet, frock, apron and pantaloons slightly bent over in conversation with three chickens. The girl dreams of a ""wee fawn,"" ""rabbits smoothing their sleek coats"" and lambs cavorting among buttercups. ( Feb.)