Giant Steps

Five loud-sighin', eye-rollin', yawny-bored giants are sittin' on a mountaintop, and the game they play to beat their boredom is always the same--"giant steps." One giant (named "IT" in the one-potato game) stays on the mountain to count, as the four other giants "take off runnin'" north across the Earth ("out over snow-white slopes and bobbing icebergs"), south ("over wide wavy plains and dark tangle jungles"), east ("over jaggy-tip mountains and bottomless pools"), and west ("over red-stripe desert and yawn-mouth canyons"). When the fifth giant stops counting and yells, "FREEZE!" he throws a big golden ball at the giant who is closest to him. He consistently misses, and so has to be "IT" all over again, just like he always is. Elizabeth Loredo's mythic tall tale based on a familiar childhood game is more about the outlandish idea of truly giant steps covering the four corners of the globe and the rhythm of language than it is a plot-driven story. Barry Root's illustrations (inspired by Böcklin's painting Battle of the Centaurs) effectively capture the exaggerated tall-tale humor as well as the majesty of the Earth-traversing giants. (Ages 5 and older) --Karin Snelson