A `first book' can explore the richness of simplicity

Author: By Liz Rosenberg

Date: SUNDAY, July 19, 1998

Page: C3

Section: Books

Author/illustrator Lynne Cherry pays respectful attention to nature in her beautiful board books on animals of the wild: ``Grizzly Bear,'' ``Seal,'' ``Snow Leopard'' and ``Orangutan.'' The language is direct and spare: ``The bears are hungry. Berries and bark, meat and fish, grizzlies eat almost anything.'' Illustrations take up both sides of the boardmark pages, yet honor a sense of wildness and of space, as does the text: ``Mother jumps. Baby jumps. Young ones learn . . .'' (``Snow Leopard'').

Too many board books assume that babies and toddlers are limited to the domestic world of rattles, baths, cookies, and socks. In each of these four ``First Wonders of Nature'' board books, Cherry offers a wider view.

``1 2 3 Yippie,'' a small square counting book by Boston author and illustrator Lisa Jahn-Clough, is peculiar in a few endearing ways, and (as long as we are counting) a few less-endearing. The art has wonderful exuberance, in a bold, pop-art European style, with golden lemon yellows, soft lime greens, deep blues and purples.

The book counts from one to 10, back down to one -- then up again to two -- with an unusual party of ``little'' animals taking place in ``one little house all alone.'' (That insistence on ``little'' is the least endearing part of the book.) Everything enters and exits, including ``5 little monkeys'' in party hats, ``7 little turtles [who] make a grand entrance'' (and ``grand exit'') and ``10 little monsters'' bearing cake in, stomach aches out.

I was initially puzzled by the countdown to ``1 little house all alone'' instantly amended by ``2 little children who make it their home.'' Do the children live there, as the ``Home Sweet Home'' sign implies? Why count all the way down, then back up? But this is a peculiarity I like: Unhinging the real world a little is what picture books do best, and in truth, numbers move not just up and down but around -- and the sooner children learn this, the better off they'll be in math, and in life.

Author Jennifer Davis offers a spirited, kid-friendly version of baby's development in the nine months before birth. More about babies than strictly for them, ``Before You Were Born'' presents a rollicking, good-humored countdown from ``Before you were born and with 9 months to go'' to the ``lights! camera! action!'' of birth. The main text rhymes and bounces, with small prose sidebars of information: ``With five months to go . . . your head was the size of a lightbulb.''

Illustrator Laura Cornell's ingenious lift-the-flaps make the view of each month's baby-to-be a comic surprise. Cornell's art is cartoon-wild, in shades of orange, pink, turquoise blue; the outer plays wittily against what's (literally) inside.

In art and text, ``Before You Were Born'' finds a happy blend of teaching and play. I have only one objection: The baby's task is not ``to grow plumper so you'd be soft and round when you were born,'' but to help ensure the baby's survival. This is the only misstep in an otherwise delightful book.

One would expect tremendous, fantastic things from a concept board book by the late Keith Haring, the internationally prized artist. And indeed, ``Big'' is full of things tremendous and fantastic -- or both at once, as in ``GIGANTIC YELLOW button-down shirt'' on a green-haired fellow swimming inside a huge sunburst-yellow shirt (``Extra-long sleeves'' the text says), or a phosphorescent pair of ``JUMBO GREEN baggy jeans'' that make street-fashion look, well, small.

``Big'' teaches the concept of size (large) and color. And it does so with the sly, unabashed, rainbow-paletted joy that was Haring's hallmark. Who says that art -- and early childhood reading -- can't be fun?