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Once upon a time, E.B. White wrote about Stuart Little, a mouse who lived in a human world. The Rat Race (Doubleday; $5.95), by Colin McNaughton, turns the fable: Anton is a miniboy who spends his time with rodents. The rats turn out to be jocks with tails, more interested in jogging than reading. They also like to cheat at foot races, and the king rat must intervene before Anton wins first prize: freedom to go home to his humongous parents. Readers will be even gladder to see him.
Mushroom in the Rain (Collier; $2.50) is the kind of paperback that gets taken to bed along with security blankets. Mirra Ginsburg's tale is as simple as a rattle, but Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey provide pictures that educate as well as entertain. For the very young, who wonder what happens to animals when it rains or to mushrooms when it doesn't, this slim volume provides reassuring answers.
In Anna's Journey (Collins-World; $7.95), Artist Mitsumasa Anno drops his didactic approach for a textless portrait of trips through rural landscapes. But Anno is too much of a teacher to provide mere illustration. Although Journey is designed in the style of Oriental scroll painting, its locales are European, and close readers can find a series of surprises: details from paintings by Renoir and Millet; children's games; and glimpses of characters from Pinocchio, Little Red Ridinghood and Sesame Street.
By now, both large and small readers should have ODed on war. But William Pène du Bois has a way of suggesting explosions that are as harmless as fireworks. According to The Forbidden Forest (Harper & Row; $7.95), two heroes and a heroine brought the Great War to an end. How they did it provides enough exploits and complications for a Tolstoyan novel. Suffice it to say that the heroine turns out to be a non-human lady who would have been at home in Australia. Those who fear that the subject is too bellicose for young readers should take comfort in the fact that this high-jumping tale is dedicated to Jane Fonda. Besides, as Ogden Nash once shrewdly observed:
Whenever poets want to give you
the idea that something is
particularly meek and mild,
They compare it to a child,
Thereby proving that though poets
with poetry may be rife
They don 't know the facts of life.
— Stefan Kanfer