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THE LAST LITTLE DRAGON, by Roger Price, illustrated by Mamoru Funai (Harper & Row; $3.50). A modern Just So Story about a little dragon with "a long spiked tail and 212 teeth" who, alas, couldn't breathe fire so the old sea turtle fixed that with some hot peppers, coal and oil, but then Algon burnt up everything around the house, so once again the old sea turtle, etc., etc., and that, oh best beloved, is how the first alligator was born.
A LION IN THE MEADOW, by Margaret Mahy, illustrated by Jenny Williams (Watts; $4.95). Dazzling illustrations send a small boy, the year's most attractive lion, and the boy's matter-of-fact mother into cheerful orbit.
IVAN AND THE WITCH, by Mischa Damjan, illustrated by Toma Bogdanovic (McGraw-Hill; $4.50); IVANKO AND THE DRAGON, by Marie Halun Bloch, illustrated by Yaroslava (Atheneum; $4.95). Two books, both worth reading, based on the same-folk tale—though the first claims to be Russian, the second Ukrainian. The Bogdanovic casein and pastel illustrations are blurrily magical. Yaroslava's precise pictures are closer to folk art.
SQUAPS, THE MOONLING, by Ursina Ziegler, translated from the German by Barbara Kowal Gollob, illustrated by Sita Jucker (Atheneum; $4.95). Apollo 11 literary fallout about an astronaut who returns from the moon with a funny little creature clinging to his space suit. His children make it their playmate and call it Squaps (the sound that answers all questions on the moon). Squaps enjoys the earth, especially his discovery of water —from shower baths, sprinklers and watering cans. And then comes the next full moon.
THE ROTTEN BOOK, by Mary Rodgers, illustrated by Steven Kellogg (Harper & Row; $2.50). At breakfast one morning, in between telling Simon to eat his egg, his parents are discussing a little boy who is "rotten, absolutely rotten." And Simon begins to imagine all the things he would do if he were rotten. The detailed pencil drawings show him racing through a supermarket, cutting off his sister's hair and finally going to jail. The text by musical writer Mary Rodgers (Once Upon a Mattress) is deadpan funny.
THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE, by Barbara Hazen and Tomi Ungerer (Lancelot; $3.95). The lazy young apprentice tries some magic spells of his own—with optional help from an LP record ($5.98 for set) of Paul Dukas' music interpreted by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.
THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO, by C. Collodi, illustrated by Attilio Mussino (Macmillan; $9.95). A reissue of the 1925 classic blots out Walt Disney and half a dozen other abridged and syrupy substitutes that have intervened. Here Pinocchio can be seen again as what it is: a morality tale about the rewards of mendacity; cruel, fearful and utterly charming.
WHAT IF?, by Robert Pierce (Golden Press; $1.00), is an exuberant book for the very young with splashy drawings and light verse. Sample: "What if a crocodile big as an ox/Hid in the hallway and ate your socks?"
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. The Godfather, Puzo (1 last week)
2. The House on the Strand, du Maurier (3)
3. The Inheritors, Robbins (2)
4. The Seven Minutes, Wallace (4)
5. The Love Machine, Susann (7)
6. In This House of Brede, Godden (6)