A PARENT'S GUIDE TO CHILDREN'S READING

The fourth edition of Larrick's popular guide, rearranged, rewritten and expanded to include 200 new book titles and an AV section listing records, films and filmstrips. To us the addition (of filmstrips especially) only strengthens the impression, already established by the recommendation of choral readings, experience charts and taped readings, that Larrick wants to turn every home into a school. However, she does remind parents that their projects' chief outcome should be pleasure and that they shouldn't ""make too big a thing about"" teaching their offspring to read, and there are other bits of sound if unstartling advice. Certainly any parent whose children spend their Saturday mornings with TV (and that we suspect includes most of us) could profit from her exhortation to ""watch the whole 3(apple)-hour orgy"" oneself as the only way to realize how dismal the experience is. And though she never transcends the level of criticism that prevails in the children's book world (""free verse is used by some of the best-known poets in the United States and Europe today""), her extensive, usefully annotated lists are likely to remain in demand for as long as she continues to update them.