One out of every nine books published in the U.S. is a children's book. The bulk of this output does not occupy the classic realm of the imagination but a huge waste-of-time land. There are usually stories about neurasthenic little animals that want to secede from the animal kingdom. There are tales about plug-ugly ducklings (human) who can't seem to acquire a friend until the sentimental fadeout page. For pre-teentimers there are soap operettas about girls "who never quite know how to talk to boys." The boys are usually busy talking to a pet moose or rocketing off to the moon. But at least, the cautionary yarns of the brush-your-teeth-or-mommy-won't-love-you variety seem to be on the wane. So are humorless educative nip-ups of the A-is-for-aspidistra, B-is-for-bathy-sphere order.
Parents on a book hunt are well advised to adopt the following rule: the younger the child, the better the books that are available. Books for tots are usually splashed with color, well designed, and sometimes contain surprising riches of fun and wonder. Older children would be better off kicking the kiddy-bait habit and graduating to Huckleberry Finn. A sampling of the season's best offerings for small fry and a few distinctive items for older children:
THE SUN (text adapted from Helga Mauersberger, pictures by Klaus Winter and Helmut Bischoff; Franklin Watts; $3.95) rollicks through the cycle of the seasons in an anthropocentric spree. Miss Sunshine is the high-powered female producer of the solar show. Her problem actor is Cousin Rain, a climatological cut-up who releases Mr. Thunder and Mr. Lightning from their padlocked castle. Miss Sunshine's loyal ally is Mr. Rainbow, the official scene painter who slips about, brush in hand, to give beetle, butterfly and snail shell the appropriate hue of the season. The pixyish, Chagall-accented illustrations set the special tone of the book.
MUD PIES AND OTHER RECIPES (by Marjorie Winslow, with illustrations by Erik Blegvad; Macmillan; $2.50) varies between arch and fallen arch. The sly fringe benefit for parental readers is the spoofing of standard cookbook lingo. Sample recipe:
ROAST ROCKS
"Place 6 medium-size rocks in an oven and roast until hard on the outside but still rare inside. This takes about as long as chasing a butterfly. Roast Rocks tend to be difficult to slice, so serve each doll a whole rock. Serves 6."
THERE IS A DRAGON IN MY BED (by Sesyle Joslin, illustrated by Irene Haas; Harcourt, Brace; $2.25) is the kind of book that separates the privileged U child from the underprivileged non-U brat. It is bilingual, featuring first-reader French for cosmopolitan moppets. Two tykes, a boy and a girl dressed in their parents' clothes, take a mock-adult trip to Paris. The author's gentle wit consists in creating a mildly inappropriate setting for the appropriate French phrase. The little girl falls into a fountain under a spouting marble fish. Caption, "Il pleut, Monsieur (eel pluh muh-seyuh)," means "It is raining, sir." Irene Haas's line drawings superbly evoke a tourist's Paris. A book for the household that thought it had everything when it bought Winnie Ille Pu.