TUTANKHAMEN'S GIFT

A glimpse of the boy king, youngest son of Amenhotop III, which postulates that he enjoyed a quiet, relatively solitary childhood before his father's death. The boy is among those horrified by the destruction ordered by his brother Amenhotep IV when he proclaims the god of the sun as the one god; the book ends when King Tutankhamen succeeds to the throne, promising to ``rebuild the temples and fill them with monuments to the gods so the people will again have faith.'' The brief narrative is sufficient pretext for Sabuda's sumptuous double-spread illustrations, in which elegant black paper cuts create elegantly austere lines which are imposed on richly textured handmade Egyptian papyrus; solid areas of jewel-like colors are added to the resulting designs, which are based on ancient Egytian artifacts. A handsome labor of love. Note. (Biography/Picture book. 5-10)