New themes, new variations on older ones, and new directions for established authors and artists characterise this selection of picture books. Publishers are to be commended for their willingness to support experiments; if the result is not always wholly successful, the very fact that new talent and new ideas are encouraged is of far greater ultimate importance.

Stories of giants and midgets belong to the folk literature of all cultures; and have been the especial favourites of children, who seem them the dramatisation of some of their own frustrations in an outsize world.