EMMA'S CHRISTMAS

The Twelve Days of Christmas"" has been reissued by a surfeit of illustrators in a plethora of styles, but this reworking has something new: Emma, a farm maiden wooed by the local prince, actually counts and copes with the arriving menagerie and crowds--feeding pears to the fowl, and omelets to the drummers, pipers, and maids. Beleaguered but charmed, she finally consents to the match--on condition that they stay on the farm; and in the company of the enumerated multitudes, including 184 birds, she and the prince exchange the 40 rings and are happily married. With dancing line and cheerful watercolor, Trivas brings out the humor in the logical implications of this old favorite, with a gentle feminist twist and a final chuckle: those birds laid ""thousands of eggs. . .most of which hatched.