GIGGLE BOX

A highly satisfactory collection of 15 stories whether you giggle, chuckle or collapse with merriment-with wonderful Steig cartoons. There are stories of ingenious heroes and heroines overcoming familiar obstacles -- Marion Holland's story about a boy's hard-boiled system for coping with dumb parties, for example, or Eleanor Estes tale about a patriotic wash-cloth knitter. For those of the banana peel school of humor there are plenty of yocks -- Robert McCloskey's Homer tangles with a non-stop doughnut machine, LeGrand's Augustus makes a horrid mistake in his battle against spring tonic, and the classic nonsense stories are represented: Lesley Frost's The Very Mischief (the best of its kind for our money), Ruth Stiles Gannett's Some of My Father's Adventures and two blythe fancies by Carl Sandburg. Although the inclusion of a rather rarified English selection by E. V. Lucas may not be obvious enough for the general, and we might have substituted a Mark Twain or Hugh Lofting selection in place of the venerable Ruggles' romp from The Bird's Christmas Carol this is a good bet on the whole.