Once upon a Golden Apple (Viking Kestrel picture books)
PreSchool-Grade 2-- Dad begins his storytelling with "Once upon a," but soon extemporizes on common fairy-tale themes. His children are horrified. "There lived Snow White and the three bears" and many similar mix-ups just won't do, and they insist that he tell the story right . It takes the entire book to fix his fractured retellings, but finally everyone arrives at a happy ending. The pacing of this story is lively, with double-page spreads (often with four-pictures per spread), fantasy scenes, and real life settings tumbling after one another and unified by a flower-and-scroll border. Most of the allusions will be familiar to culturally literate children, but one or two will stump even a children's librarian, and there's no key or identification list. How charming to see the father doing the reading. An especially pleasant book for older preschoolers at story hour.- Anna Biagioni Hart, Martha Washington Lib . , Alexandria, VACopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.