Charlotte and The White Horse
Now in its second season, HarperCollins's reissue of 22 Sendak  classics continues. This time, his collaborations with Ruth  Krauss take center stage. In Charlotte and the White Horse,  first published in 1955, creamy pages frame Sendak's softly lit  illustrations of a girl who convinces her father to keep a  wobbly legged horse and cares for him until he can stand on his  own. Sendak's delicate watercolors suit the dream-like mood of a  boy who accomplishes all that he sets out to do in his imaginary  world, in I Want to Paint My Bathroom Blue (1956), also by  Krauss. A boy's imagination also comes to the fore in A Very  Special House (1953) by Krauss, as the artist depicts the hero  creating a home filled with a turtle, a giant, a very old lion  and "some monkeys and some skunkeys." Oversize pages brim with  the creatures as well as his house's "very special" furnishings.  Open House for Butterflies (1960) takes a similar format to  these collaborators' classic A Hole Is to Dig, and lastly,  Hector Protector and As I Went Over the Water: Two Nursery  Rhymes (1965) by Sendak conveys as much plot through the  artist's wordless spreads as with the minimal text. For  collectors and budding readers alike.  Nov.Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.