GIANTS, INDEED

The latest of Virginia Kahl's story hour staples is a simple folk-type tale in which familiarity with the formula is part of the fun -- and the suspense. Once long ago ""when (a boy named Christopher) felt brave and strong and adventurous, he decided it was time to go see what lay beyond the forests."" His father warns him of the dangerous monsters in the forest, his sisters and brothers fear the huge, strange creatures in the sea, and his mother tells him of enormous and fierce boy-eating giants roaming the land -- but of course Christopher goes off anyway and of course he encounters, and barely escapes, all three types, ending up safe and chastened at home. But his nighttime meeting with the unseen family of giants -- to whom Christopher describes the ""huge creatures"" who ""eat folks like us"" while they express disbelief that there is anyone ""larger than we are"" -- provides all the dramatic irony a preschooler needs to turn a shivery adventure into a satisfying joke.