A YEAR FULL OF STORIES

A British import aimed squarely at the holiday gift market, with a 1998 full-color calendar on the inside of the dust jacket. For each day of the year, there is either a story (none longer than two pages, with room for copious illustration) or a poem (as short as three lines). The themes are cheerful and child-centered, running heavily to animals, the experiences of preschoolers, and seasonal and holiday themes; Independence Day is included, along with Bonfire Night (a.k.a. Guy Fawkes' Day), but Christmas is the only religious holiday mentioned or alluded to, in about half of the December selections. A few of the stories are retellings of folktales and fables, such as ``The Little Red Hen,'' ``The Teeny- Tiny Woman,'' and ``The Hare and the Tortoise.'' Over 200 of the entries are poems, including counting and alphabet rhymes, and the chief value of the volume is in the verse, though there's no index to help browsers locate favorites. The stories are too short to amount to a child's daily ration of reading, but may fill out odd moments here and there. (Anthology. 2-5)