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Nantucket Atheneum 1 India Street, 228-1110

"Where the Giant Sleeps"

by Mem Fox, illustrated by

Vladimir Radunsky

Mem Fox, renowned for reaching preschoolers through her rhymes and stories, has created a sweet and fantasy full lullaby accompanied by beautiful gouache illustrations by Vladmimir Radunsky. The story begins with a country landscape seen as a sleeping giant, and then progresses through specific parts of the landscape to locate pixies, fairies, wizards and other fairy-tale characters, slumbering peacefully while a freckled child looks on. We end with the elves, who are awake, stitching "a quilt of moon and stars" for the now sleeping child. This is a wonderful bedime story for ages 3-6.

- Maggie Head,

Nantucket Atheneum

Mitchell's Book Corner 54 Main Street, 228-1080

"The Perfect Recipe for Losing

Weight & Eating Great"

by Pam Anderson

No, this is not Pamela Anderson of "Bay Watch" fame, thank goodness. Poor Pam Anderson, a chef from Darien, Conn., for having to carry around that cross! Her latest book "The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight & Eating Great" gets you back on track in case your new year's resolution has been derailed - or never left the station. From quick breakfasts, instant lunches, teatime bites and fast and faster dinners, Anderson makes it easy to eat healthy and feel great. If you love to spend time in the kitchen but hate what it does to your waist, or hate to spend time in the kitchen but still need to eat, Anderson's book is for you.

- Lucretia Voigt,

Mitchell's Book Corner

Nantucket Bookworks 25 Broad Street, 228-4000

"The Deportees

and Other Stories!"

by Roddy Doyle

In each of the eight stories in his first short story collection, Roddy Doyle brings together a native-born citizen of Dublin with a member of the new immigrant community in Ireland. The stories play out the assumptions, hopes, prejudices and expectations of the two groups in sometimes surprising, sometimes expected ways. There's the humor familiar to readers of Doyle's "Barrytown Trilogy" as well as the poignancy and seriousness of his later works. In "The Pram," Alina, a Polish immigrant, works as a nanny for a harsh, daunting woman known only as "O'Reilly" (who refers to Alina as "my Polish peasant"). When Alina tells O'Reilly's two clever daughters a story about a woman who dwells in the forest and steals babies, the realism of "The Pram" slides seamlessly into fairy-tale grotesque. And for fans of Doyle's "The Commitments," in the title story Jimmy Rabbitte, two decades on, is cobbling together another band, only for this one, "No White Irish Need Apply." This time it's Russians, Romanians, Nigerians and Spaniards, and the band's musical genre is a surprise

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- Dick Burns, Nantucket Bookworks