OUT OF THE DUST, INTO THE TOWER

Author: By Liz Rosenberg

Date: SUNDAY, March 15, 1998

Page: F2

Section: Books

I resisted the book for its first 30 pages, because its flatness seemed to fall even below the usual prosey flatness of most contemporary free verse: flat as a pancake, as the dusty landscape it describes. Eventually it hit me that this was deliberate, artful, and necessary to the book's ultimately dazzling effect. By the time I reached the book's close, having wept my way through most of it, I was willing to redefine free verse itself, if need be, in order to include this work among recent gems.

``Out of the Dust'' is among the best books for young readers I have read in years, on a par with Lois Lowry's ``The Giver,'' Newbery Award-winner in 1994. It is one of the best books I have read in recent years, period. I would recommend it to any child mature enough to handle its sometimes-grim subjects, and to any adult mature enough to handle the same. (A nonfiction book recently praised in these pages, ``Children of the Dust Bowl'' by Jerry Stanley, would be a worthwhile and cheering companion.)

``Out of the Dust'' is not perfect -- as great books seldom are. Since it is composed of many short or shortish poems, some parts are naturally more successful than others. While Hesse's images can be clear as the rainwater these desperate farmers are thirsting for (``Like the tapping of a stranger / at the door of a dream, the rain changes everything''), she sometimes, even in the same poem, falls back upon cliche (``I am kept company by the sound of my heart / drumming''). The effect of the whole is greater than this sum of its parts can suggest. And, like a novel, ``Out of the Dust'' has an effect that is cumulative.

Adults should know that there is a death of a parent in the book -- the front flap, infuriatingly, gives more than this away -- and a horrific accidental fire in which a girl is badly burned. This is not a volume for the squeamish or faint of heart. But then, ``Out of the Dust'' is a book about endurance, fortitude, forgiveness, and hope. These are not lessons easily learned in life or in art.

My feelings are more mixed regarding this year's Caldecott Award-winner, Paul O. Zelinsky's ``Rapunzel.'' Zelinsky's out-of-this-world and over-the-top pop-up book, ``The Wheels of the Bus,'' soon to be re-released, surely deserved this award if any three-dimensional book ever did (and why not?). His folk tale, ``Swamp Angel,'' which won, among other prizes, a New York Times' Best Illustrated Award the year I served on its panel of judges, was surely a worthy contender.

But ``Rapunzel''? It is ambitious, not timid. A great deal of work has gone into its design and execution. It has the flavor and feel of genuine art. Zelinsky brilliantly occupies every inch and detail of his illustrated page.

Nonetheless, ``Rapunzel'' does not strike me as being a book for children. This is endemic to the recent grim Caldecott winners, from ``Smoky Night'' to ``The Golem.'' It's as if the Caldecott -- supposedly an award for the best children's picture book of the year -- has become an award for best children's coffee table book. Except that children do not have coffee tables -- especially not those young enough to be reading and enjoying picture books.

Zelinsky's ``Rapunzel'' tells the classic story well enough, albeit without special brilliance. Visually, the work is a golden imitation of great artists, and many of its illustrations are almost worthy of hanging in a museum. One haunting picture, where a sorceress finds the husband picking the fateful herb rapunzel, looms as terrifying and unforgettable as the scene in which the stepmother rises up, huge as the Empire State Building, in Disney's ``Snow White.'' But the rest of the book is neither up nor down to the level of that image, except for the illustration of the same evil sorceress reaching out for Rapunzel when she discovers that the girl has been, uh, receiving other house guests. The contrast between the angry, golden-haired youth, the stricken white-haired old woman, with its arrangement of mirror, treasure box, and gargoyle-footed vanity table, is probably worthy of the award all by itself.

But then there is the rest of the book, which is often less original than this -- and there are the children. A shelf full of recent Caldecott winners would be gloomy indeed, hardly the sort of thing any child would ask for again and again at bedtime.

It would not be fair to say that the Caldecott and Newbery panel members are drawn out of a hat -- some are elected, some appointed -- but it is hardly a democratic process, either. Most children's librarians I know -- members, that is, of the Association for Library Service to Children, the American Library Association subgroup that gives out these two all-important awards -- are unaware that they are permitted to suggest nominees. But since they do not know that their opinion is welcome, and since the composition, structure, and choices of these committees are as strictly guarded as the recipe for Coca-Cola, most children's librarians believe the results are entirely out of their hands.

The Newbery and Caldecott winners each year gain hundreds of thousands of library and bookstore sales. This is therefore an award with the power to put books into the hands of many children. I asked a recent panel member how many of these ``outside'' nominations or suggestions her committee had received from fellow librarians. The answer was none, as far as she knew. I have never put my faith in committees. I have always had faith in librarians. Surely in this era of telecommunication and the World Wide Web, it should be possible to institute some mechanism to invite a wider response. But then, I am naive enough to believe that actual democracy is preferable to representative democracy (one adult, one vote is my motto).

On the other hand, we have that democratic process at work in the Academy Awards, and what does it get us? ``Titanic.''