MOTHER GOOSE MAGIC

A winsome, airy confection spun from eight nursery rhymes, several of which will be new to many readers. Introducing her main characters with ``Donkey, donkey, old and gray'' (in the illustrations, the cheery animal becomes a curly-headed boy when Mother Goose waves her wand), Chorao takes them aloft to meet the pig that ``flew up in the air,'' down again to find ``Little Robin Redbreast'' and ``Sam, the Butcher Man'' (dressed as a clown), and so on, with new characters added in each rhyme and finally all tucked in together by the good goose, to the chant of ``Nanny Button Cap.'' Like a a child's dramatic play, the sequence is derived more from imaginative flights of fancy suggested by the nonsense verse than from logic; in the smiley illustrations, where deftly crosshatched details are decked out in sunny colors, the whole makes one long romp—slight, perhaps, and oversweet, but likable. (Folklore/Picture book. 2-6)