ea. vol: unpaged. CIP. Troll. 1987. PLB 9.79; pap. $1.95. Gr 1-2 These versions of two classics are ephemeral in every way. The Reluctant Dragon is paraphrased and shortened to the point of being a plot summary (``The boy was happy because he got to see a good fight and no one was hurt. And the dragon was happy because he had made a lot of new friends''), accompanied by bland, cute illustrations that sometimes resemble Shepard's in subject or composi tion but never in imagination. The text of The Velveteen Rabbit is more nearly in tact, but once again the illustrations carry little personality, lacking either the energy of Nicholson's (Doubleday, 1958) or the romanticism of Michael Hague's (Holt, 1983). Steer readers to the originals. John Peters, New York Public Library
Shepard's pristine ink illustrations adorn this 1938 edition of Grahame's story. Ages 8-11. (Mar.)
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