THE WHEELING AND WHIRLING-AROUND BOOK

This addition to the Read and Wonder series is a lighthearted survey of round shapes and, particularly, different types of circular motion. Each informal topic is discussed in playful verse (``But what if you twirl/a thinnish disk/until it's a perfect blur?/You'll find what you've made/in a ghostly way/is the every-way-round of a sphere'') and depicted in an appealing setting—an amusement park where rides demonstrate wheels, spirals, and ``Things that swing/in orbital rings''; a beach where rolled towels are cylinders, shells come in flat and conical spirals, and water ripples into concentric circles. Chamberlain's ebullient illustrations of children cavorting with springs or demonstrating the various principles are a fine complement sure to fascinate young readers. Logic doesn't always prevail (if a quantity of water were dropped into space it would become ice, not a spherical drop of liquid), but on the whole the ubiquity and utility of round things are explored engagingly and broadly. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 4-10)