Word: welled
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...after lights-out? Dreams, of course. Few black-and-white drawings have caught their incongruous logic as well as The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (Houghton Mifflin; $8.95). A suburban boy takes a nap on a magical couch. When he rises, he finds himself in a twilit garden, owned by an ominous wizard in a fez. Nothing is quite the same, not even his pet. The fat man's hobby: turning pet dogs into ducks. Long after the spell ends, an eerie residue remains, like a dream that persists in the waking world. Chris Van Allsburg's narrative leans...
...very young would do well to try a simpler volume, Ancient Egyptian Design Coloring Book (Dover; $1.50) by Ed Sibbett Jr. The motifs of cobra-goddesses, scarabs and animal deities are outlined with precision, and hints about traditional hues (red skin for men, yellow for women) can make anyone who owns a box of crayons into a high-chair archaeologist...
...unlike the Piper's troops, Lobel's keep reappearing and asking for more. He has responded with scores of books, and this season he presents Days with Frog and Toad (Harper & Row; $5.95), five short stories that teach the value of friendship, as well as the delights of working, loafing and being alone...
...creatures appear to be good-natured humans in animal suits. In Tales of Oliver Pig (Dial; $5.89) he illustrates Jean Van Leeuwen's prose with a family of pigs whose siblings squabble, whose mother has bouts of sadness and whose father can be arbitrary as well as forgiving. A bit hamhanded, but certain to be hogged by parents and children who know why Aesop told human truths with a cast of animals...
...these bright volumes have their share of chills and favors, and the giver may wonder whether sentences might occasionally be too advanced or pictures a bit demanding. Stop worrying. This season, as always, it is well to heed the dictum of Ogden Nash...